I keep reaching for my glasses even though I no longer need them!
Is this muscle memory or cognitive dissonance? For 58 years the first thing I have done in the morning is reach for my glasses.. My face feels empty now. Like going out without a coat on. Most things are very clear but because one eye wanders I have to consciously focus to reduce double vision. I will need reading glasses and possibly distance ones too but at a lot smaller diopter (strength). In the meantime I’m nervous of going outside. I don’t fancy wind blown eyeballs!
Bye bye glasses lens, after my cataract op my eye was less short sighted so the optician has popped out the glass. Weird walking round with the wind blowing into my eye! I’ve put the screwdriver in the photo to show the lens has gone.
My eyesight is still slightly short sighted, but I am happy. My only problem is a bit of double vision. I would recommend the operation, and as my other eye is now getting fuzzier I’m glad I’m booked in to have the other one done.
One big disadvantage of having to have eyedrops to open up your irises is it’s blinding on a bright sunny day when you leave your opticians. I was dreading having it done today and the sun shone brilliantly as it has done for the last week. I was searching for my clip on sunglasses for ages before I found them. Their lenses are bigger than my current spectacles so they were good because they covered my area of vision better than my normal glasses. I did find that as I waked towards the sun the light leaked round the edges and made it impossible to see through the dazzle. I found it difficult to cross roads. So I wandered along next to buildings trying to find as much shadow as I could and got home safely.
This morning the neighbour was hammering again but I ignored him, I had an appointment with the optician. I decided to walk the few hundred yards as want to try and get a bit fitter. As it was it took me about 25 minutes to walk 800 yards…. I’m just getting more unsteady and it’s a vicious circle of pain and shaking with the Parkinsons.
To the opticians, as I thought my cataracts are getting worse, he agreed, but that at least means I might be able to get one eye operated on.
I picked up a few groceries on the way home, enough for one bag. I needed some vegetables and porridge. Then home slowly in the sunshine.
When I got in I decided to pay for my garden waste collection. I tried ringing the council but got automatic voice messages explaining that I would have to pay online and no one would personally take my call. After feeling frustrated I decided to text my local councillor. That’s hit and miss as I have to spell check everything because I don’t always hit the right keys. This was asking if I could ring another number and get a real person!
Finally I tried the council number again. I chose a different option and a man answered. He put me through to the waste department and I got a real person, a woman to speak to. She asked if I could get a relative to pay, but one is dead, another lives 80 or 90 miles away and the other one is abroad. I could go down to the library she said. I explained I had already been to town and was tired out (my car was blocked in or perhaps I could have driven). Eventually it got through to her that I wasn’t going to be able to do it so after speaking to a manager she took the payment over the phone. Looking back I could have been nicer but I was tired and flustered. I she told me to use my key pad on my phone to type in some numbers and I didn’t realise she meant the phone keypad, I was looking for a qwerty keyboard! I did apologise for taking up her time.
So then I fell asleep and dozed for a while. It’s taken me a while to get this down on my phone keypad. I don’t normally have the energy to do so much in one day, my feet and ankles ache and I’m feeling a bit grumpy!
Screaming for help from hubby this morning. I was just cleaning my glasses but with my shaking arm I wobbled and dropped them onto the kitchen floor. I picked them up, but a lens had come out. I tried to find it but having one focused and one unfocused eye didn’t help. Started shouting, but hubby was upstairs and is deaf. I looked all around, the eye with the missing lens closed so I was just looking out of the lens still in my glasses. I moved the fridge back a couple of inches very gingerly and moved the bin, no sign. I shouted some more and went upstairs and woke my hubby. Help! Please help! He came down and straight away found it! Half way down the kitchen under the overhanging base of the sink (how did it get there? Must have skittered across the floor). The lens wouldn’t fit in very well. So.. Tape? I found masking tape, and parcel tape, then a very broad roll of sellotape. I managed to cut a thin strip. The lens is just about in place. I’m going to get the opticians to fix it later…. So of course I decided to illustrate the glasses!
How lucky to have glasses, to be able to see. I didn’t always wear glasses. My poor eyesight was only picked up in eye screening at school. I don’t remember things being blurred or hard to see. Did I sit at the front of the class? I don’t know. I remember my first glasses. They had beautiful blue frames. I learnt to be patient as the optician looked into the back of my eyes. Shining a light so I could see the blood vessels reflected somehow onto my retinas.
Rugby ball shaped eyes were the diagnosis. Short sighted. Suddenly I could see the world clearly. I felt freed from a struggle I did not know I had been going through. I only realised how bad my eyesight was when I learnt to swim. I couldn’t wear my glasses in the swimming pool and I could not recognise my friends unless they came close.
Now I understand why I got lost on a beach a few years before! I could not see my family when I wandered off. And why I got lost on a caravan site. I could not see the numbers on the vans…. Yes I am lucky. I wish others could be too…
Do you have floaters in your eyes? When I look at anything I can see vague shapes floating about in my eyes. Luckily they are mainly around the periphery of my vision. I just drew this eye and tried to mark out their positions and opacity/transparency, The trouble is as you move your eyes or head they move and ‘float’ about too ( I guess thats why they are called floaters). Sometimes they’re very obvious, like on a bright sunny day they look like the shadows of birds flying overhead, or against a bright screen they can look quite dark. From talking to my Optician I believe they are the shadows of dead blood cells that are loose inside my eye. They either leak out or are pulled out by the gel in your eyes shrinking as your eyes get older. Mine are mostly unnoticable except when I’m concentrating on a drawing, or looking closley at something. Sometimes I see them when I’m driving , or on a snowy day. I wish I had asked the optician more? I think its something to mention if you have them as the optician needs to know, and it may be indicative of something going on. But don’t panic. Just take care of yourself.
Mallaband-Brown 