Seeing Things

Thursday April 9 2026, Rusty

I had my annual vision exam yesterday. I’m still relatively new in the neighborhood and in the process of changing my providers. It’s my first time in this doctor’s office, so I had the honor of telling my story again.

I have lazy eye, amblyopia, passed down from my mom and possibly her mom. It’s a neurological disease and the main symptom for me is extreme low vision in the right eye. During my childhood development my brains learned to recognize only the vision from my left eye, and over time the other vision was ignored so I wouldn’t see two clear images. I still see double but only one dominate vision. On top of that I’m very farsighted, and with age my prescription gets more and more complicated each year. First it was just reading glasses in my twenties; when I had to start wearing glasses when I cooked it became a more serious problem. Then I couldn’t read street signs any more and it took months to get through the DMV hurdle with new vision and road testing and all that. For awhile I had distant glasses for regular activities, reading glass for close up, and prescription sunglass for driving and outdoors. My purse was a totebag for different glass cases. Now I wear progressive transitional glasses so I don’t have to constantly switch glasses.

Mind you all these are just for the left eye. The right eye can’t see regardless, no glasses can help it. They put an identical lens on the glasses to balance the weight and visual. If I have a magic lamp being able to see clearly without glasses would be one of my wishes.

Since this was a new doctor it’s worth asking a few questions and trying my luck. I was used to doctors throwing their hands up in the air and telling me go away.

Me: Can I try contacts?

Doc: No, too risky for the left eye. Glasses can protect your eyes from physical injury and you can’t afford to lose vision in your left eye.

Me: Can I try laser to fix the farsightedness? Then at least I’ll have one perfect eye.

Doc: No, even more risky and no doctor would attempt it. Too much liability.

Me: Two of my friends had cataract surgery recently and now they have perfect vision. Can I try that for the left eye? I mean I’ll probably get cataract someday, might as well be proactive.

Doc: (still trying to be patient) No, you don’t have cataract. We’ll deal with it when the day comes, but for now we can’t give you the surgery when you don’t need it.

For this appointment I paid extra $39 for OptoMap imaging so I wouldn’t need to have my eyes dilated so I could go home safely. I paid extra for special light weight lenses since the prescription was so high and the weight of the glasses would be burdensome on my nose. I paid extra for protective coatings for the lenses for strength and reflections. I had a narrow selection of frames because they had to be extra light weight yet had enough space for the high prescription lenses.