The eyes have it

I had no choice, I had to break down and get new glasses.  Not just frames, which I also needed, but new lenses.  As I spoke to the eye doctor, I was brought to the sudden realization that yes, I am very much getting older.

The new glasses I have are progressive lenses.  For those who do not have the joy of having glasses, or are much younger than I am, here is what progressive lenses means.

From Wikipedia:

Progressive spectacle lenses, also called progressive addition lenses (PAL), progressive power lenses, graduated prescription lenses, and varifocal or multifocal lenses, are corrective lenses used in eyeglasses to correct presbyopia and other disorders of accommodation. They are characterised by a gradient of increasing lens power, added to the wearer’s correction for the other refractive errors. The gradient starts at the wearer’s distance prescription, at the top of the lens and reaches a maximum addition power, or the full reading addition, at the bottom of the lens. The length of the progressive power gradient on the lens surface depends on the refractive index of the lens, with a final addition power between 0.75 to 3.00 dioptres for most wearers. The addition value prescribed depends on the level of presbyopia of the patient and is closely related to age and to a lesser extent, existing prescription.

This is going to take some getting used to, as I have already discovered.  Looking straight ahead is fine.  The world is so much clearer than my old glasses.  But looking down, that’s a whole new adventure.  My eyes have to adjust every time they move it would seem.

My eyes are getting older, and they aren’t really getting better.  As a matter of fact, they’re getting worse.  It’s a scary thing to think about sometimes, and the thought has run through my head that what if one day I wake up and I’m completely blind.  As it is, my eyes are bad enough that I can be classed as close as legally blind without actually being blind.

It has been suggested that I go in to have my eyes dilated, which as has been described to me, is like having a puff of air shot at my eyes.  I have a hard time touching my eye (no contact lenses for me) so a puff of air probably isn’t going to be any better.  I have also been informed that I won’t be able to drive for the day after it’s done.

I suppose it isn’t so bad, at least a lot of this is preventative, so that my eyes won’t get worse right away, or I won’t have to go in for major surgery.  So, why not lazer surgery?  Why wouldn’t I wish to improve my eyes that way?  Remember what I said about touching the eye (which just the thought makes me squicky)?  Yeah, lazers really don’t make that any better.  It’s like “Here, have some hot, burning light in your eye ball!”  No thanks, I’ll put up with the glasses.

Until next time…

…keep ’em flyin’!