Blind in One Eye...Can't See Out of the Other

I remember it beginning in fourth grade. That's the year I started school at Our Lady. I sat in the middle of the classroom. Sister would always write the math problems on the board using very large numbers. It didn't matter--I couldn't see them. Somehow I realized if I pulled on my eyelids to make my eyes squint REAL HARD I could barely make out the numbers and could then write them in my notebook. It had to have taken my twice as long as the other students to get my classwork done.

I never saw anyone else having trouble reading the chalkboard, but I never thought about me having bad eyesight either. I guess little kids don't even think about such things. I got away with this trick for over three years. No one ever noticed--or if they did, they probably just thought I was being a stupid little kid.

Then when I was in sixth grade, one of the neighborhood girls got glasses. She let me try them on and I was shocked. I could see leaves on faraway trees. I could read things from a distance. It was like magic. I ran in the house and told Mom about it. She dismissed it with, "Oh, you just want glasses!" Well, I didn't want glasses, but I did want to SEE. (No doubt she heard stuff like that from us every day.)

One day while waiting for the school bus, I ran back to the house and told Mom a plane had landed in the field. She ran outside to see, but the plane turned out to be the white roof of a house. Sure looked like a plane to me. The next winter, we were sledding down at the creek. It had frozen over and there were several inches of snow on the ground. As I was bringing my sled up the hill, I didn't see that I was walking right into the branches of a tree. I punctured my right lower eyelid completely through. The boys thought it was pretty cool that I was crying blood. I went into the house, looked into the mirror, pulled down my eyelid, and picked out the bark that was left behind. I was lucky I didn't get an infection, but it healed up quite nicely. Then there was the time I was pitching a softball to one of my brothers, who hit a line drive right into my eye. I didn't see that one coming either. I sure didn't have any problem seeing that big ol' black eye in the mirror.

In seventh grade, we were getting ready to head to my grandma's house. Dad and I were packing the car in the early morning hours before sunrise. I looked up in the sky and said, "Dad, look at the full moon". Dad looked up and said, "That's a crescent moon". And stars? I could only make out a couple of the brightest planets as very blurry round pieces of light.

Dad took me inside and held a book at arm's length. "Read it", he said. Read it? I couldn't even begin to make out any words. I had to hold a book within six inches of my eyes to be able to read. That's when he told Mom that I needed to go see an eye doctor.

A few days later, the optometrist at Sears told Mom that I needed a seeing-eye dog! I picked out my glasses and began a long week's wait for them to arrive. Seven days later, I walked out of Sears sporting a very stylish pair of spectacles. I nearly sprained my neck to see everything. I could read signs. I could see people's faces. What an amazing thing it is to not see for several years and then suddenly being able to see everything!

Three of us out of the four ended up very nearsighted. I also have a moderate amount of astigmatism to go along with the myopia. When my kids were little, I knew what signs to watch for, and both of them saw an optometrist by the time they were five. I took my son when he was in kindergarten, and then again a year or two later. On the second visit, Doc told me that his eyes were fine, but he was going to be near-sighted like me.

My daughter was about three when she looked across two back yards at my neighbor. She closed one eye, pointed, and said, "Mom, Carol looks furry". At first I thought it was one of Carrie's "made-up" words when she didn't know the right word to use. But then I realized she might mean blurry instead of furry. I thought her eyesight also might explain why the child couldn't walk UP a flight of stairs without falling UP the stairs. So I took her to see Doc. Doc said that her eyes were fine, but it's easier for a kid to focus one eye rather than two eyes. So out of a DNA mixture of a very far-sighted male with tons of astigmatism and a very myopic female with a moderate amount of astigmatism, we had one myopic kid. Our daughter got off easy.

Some have asked me why I don't have Lasix to correct my eyes. Years ago, I would've had it done. But now my biggest problem is presbyopia. That's when your arms get too short to read the newspaper. I wear progressive lenses, but they don't help much when I sit in front of a PC all day (and all night). So at work, I wear single-vision lenses ground to my "near" prescription. If I had Lasix, I would lose the ability to remove my glasses and practically see down to the cellular level! There are just too many times during the day when I have to remove my glasses to be able to see very tiny print. So I'll just put up with glasses and contacts.

By the way, I ended up going to work for Doc. I took patient accuities and made glasses in our little lab. I didn't grind the lenses, but ordered them, set them up, cut them, hardened the glass lenses, and put the glasses together. I was really good at dyeing plastic lenses too. But the best part of the job was getting all of the family's glasses for lab cost, and Doc's eye care for free.

Doc moved to Terre Haute years ago and I've had lots of other jobs since then. I now go to an eye doctor in a neighboring town. He uses the same Snellen eye chart that Doc used. So whenever I have an eye exam, I really have to think if I can see the letters or if I'm just spouting them off from memorization.

If you've got kids, watch for those signs that tell you something isn't right with their vision. My grades didn't drop due to my poor eyesight, but boy, do I have droopy eyelids from all the pulling!