1178 New Glasses

Thursday, March 22, 2007

I've been reading through old journal entries. Even a year ago I had things to say: observations, philosophy, personal experiences that affected the course of my life. I had opinions and passion. Some of it was interesting to me, rereading, and I already know what it says!

Quite different from entries these days. I don't seem to be thinking much. It's like I'm on hold. Waiting. Listening to the uninspiring music in my head.

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Today I got the Aerio checked out, and as expected, it was a loose heat shield. They removed it. Seems like every car I've ever owned eventually lost its heat shield. One of these days I'm going to park in high grass and burn a village down.

Then I went to the mall and got a major eye exam, four different kinds of drops, dilation, six different machines to peer into, the works. Conclusion: I don't have hardening of the eyeball or rotting of the retina. And just for fun, I got a definitive analysis of my eye color.

The doctor kept saying "Your eyes are such a beautiful color", so I asked him, "What color are they, exactly? There's always been some difference of opinion there, and you should be an expert." He said "Gray, uh, gray-blue, uh, gray-green? Gee, I don't know." So he said "Let's go back to the microscope, and I'll tell you exactly what you've got in there."

I don't know if it's common or rare, but he seemed to be surprised by what he found, or what he didn't find. I have some bits of brown right around the pupil, and some specks of definite green throughout the rest of the iris, but that's the only color there. NO blue, and NO gray. What was surprising is that most of the iris has NO COLOR at all! None. There's no pigment. He said that's what causes the silvery color, and also why they can be very different depending on what I'm wearing, and the ambient light.

(So, if I have mostly no pigment, why am I not more sensitive to strong light?) Anyway, he kept marveling over how light my eyes are. Oddly, they've never looked particularly light to me, but things do look different in a mirror. Mirrors affect color. Ladies with blue hair think it's steel gray.

I lucked out on the frames. Among the thousands of narrow frames, there was one small stand of rounder, deeper frames, and they were on sale! I bought two pairs (I am so dependant on my glasses, I always get two), one at $98, and the other at $87. The $87 ones were originally $250, and they're the ones you can bend every which way and they spring back. They're both half-frames, with the nylon thread around the bottom of the lens. The lenses, on the other hand, were $250 per pair.

The whole procedure took five hours, and cost $500 after the 30% discount AAA got me. I do have vision insurance through The Company health plan, but, well, nobody but a few private practice ophthalmologists accept it.

It takes ages for my eyes to "undilate", so that shot the rest of the day.

Dr. said there was a large change in my prescription, I'm a lot less nearsighted now (one of the few benefits of age) and it might take a few days for me to get used to the difference.

I notice no difference, other than that I can now read the newspaper.
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