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Glasses
A couple years ago, I saw an optometrist and I got some new glasses but they were only for computer use. My regular multifocal lenses weren’t working for the middle distance of a computer screen. So I’ve been switching out when I’m using my laptop since then. This has mostly worked except that I sometimes would forget to switch back. Anyway, I was overdue to an eye appointment so popped in last week while I had some free time.
I forgot about taking my computer glasses so I couldn’t have them checked for the prescription. The optometrist spent a long time examining my old glasses. He noted they were really scratched. Funny but I didn’t notice it until he mentioned this. I’ve had them for probably five or six or maybe even seven years so that shouldn’t be too surprising, especially since I have knocked them off the night table next to my bed on a regular basis. For that alone, I needed new lenses. Anyway, my prescription has changed so I was off to see the optician just after. There were three tiers of multifocal lenses so I went for the top one as I had never been able to read well with the old ones. I usually had to remove my glasses to read.
My new glasses arrived today and I picked them up soon after I got my notification. I immediately could see better in that everything looked sharper. I suppose lack of scratches could do that alone. :) I have also noted that it seems I can read with these so the days of moving my glasses off and on might just be over. Alas they are of limited value at the computer, which isn’t unexpected. I will continue to use the special pair for that and I keep the old glasses in the car for future needs. Even overly scratched they will suit my needs for driving. One other thing I noticed is I didn’t feel all weird when looking around like I have in the past. It was quite a bit more money but it seems the premium will be worth it. I do wonder how many years these will last.
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I can see clearly now, sort of…
I was overdue for my eye examination and the Scientist was long overdue for his. We finally made appointments and saw an optometrist last weekend. I knew my vision had gotten worse, particularly in my left eye, so I guess it wasn’t too much of a surprise to be told my left eye had worsened by one dioptre, which is kind of significant. My right eye was worse but not by nearly so much. I think the vision change happened not far into last year so I should have seen to this long before now.
I ordered new glasses which haven’t come in. The Scientist got a message yesterday that his were ready but today I found out mine had to be redone due to a problem with the coating. Mine are far more complex than his, though, so this doesn’t surprise me too much. I’m just anxious to have them again.
I haven’t been offered contact lenses for a very long time, presumably due to the dry eye problem I have from the Sjogren’s syndrome. But this optometrist suggested I have a trial of them and see how I do with them. So I did and I was “fitted” for them today. The appointment was for an hour but I didn’t need that long. My history is mostly linked with rigid gas permeable lenses but that was off the table this time. Still, I remember quite a few of the important parts of wearing contacts, particularly the hygiene. I’m trying out disposable soft lenses that will correct my astigmatism. One thing I came away with this time is a proper way to remove them from my eye. I didn’t do well with soft lenses in the past because I kept gouging my eye trying to get them out. Getting them in wasn’t a problem at all. It’s pretty similar to the harder lenses except there’s a lot more coverage of the eye.
I have two different variations to try out with these contacts. The first one is wearing them for distance only and using readers for close up work. The second one is using one contact for distance and one for close up.
Going in I felt like it would be best to go with two distance ones, but I am not so sure after wearing them for the better part of the day. I will say they were pretty comfortable for most of the eleven hours I was wearing them. I did use eye drops once when they started to feel dry but otherwise it was fine.
Seeing at a distance is absolutely brilliant. I shudder to think how poor my vision has been all this time and I suspect that I shouldn’t have been driving when my left eye was so off. I can only hope my right eye has compensated to some degree. I could read the computer screen from a fair distance, which is something kind of new for me. At least I don’t recall having such crisp vision from so far away.
Seeing up close is really tricky. I can still read unaided pretty well but with the contacts in, my close-up vision was impossible. I couldn’t even look at my phone properly and squinting is no help at all. I did buy some reader glasses from the pharmacy to use for close up and that makes a huge difference but putting them on an off to read things up close is kind of maddening. Still it’s mostly doable that way.
The real issue came when I sat down at my computer. That middle distance is too close to see with just my contacts but the readers aren’t all that effective either. I was getting blurriness both ways and it was kind of exhausting too. I will be giving them a few more times before I throw in the towel with them just to see if I can work with them in the longer term.
More realistically, I suspect I will have to hope I can work with the other configuration with one eye for close up and one for distance. I have a vague recollection my mom had this set up many years ago and I think it worked okay for her. It sounds a bit crazy to me but possibly not so much as being so impaired on my close up vision.
One thing that struck me after I got the contacts in and wore them a bit was how wonderful it was to see again. It was like I didn’t know what I was missing and was a similar feeling to when I first got glasses as a teenager. I don’t know how bad my vision was at that point but I recall being thrilled to see so many things properly again. The best part of all is the peripheral vision. With glasses that pretty much goes out the window and I did adjust to it but I like being able to see off to the sides. I will admit that if I decide to stick with contacts I will need to buy some sunglasses again. I haven’t worn them for ages because my glasses have had transition lenses the last several times which has worked really well for me.
Anyway, I will update again after trying out the other set up for my contacts and after getting the new glasses.
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Wobbly
I definitely overdid the exercise yesterday and my muscles all felt so tired today. It was still the same when I went to tai chi tonight and my legs felt a bit like jelly as I wobbled along. I made it through the class and even think I managed my new moves pretty well today. In class tonight, I received a certificate recognising my achievement in completing three of the six levels of the program. It’s only taken three terms to reach that point but I am here and looking forward to getting another certificate once I’ve complete all six basic levels.
I finished off the last of the curries from Game Fanatic’s curry feast on Friday at lunch today. All that was left were a vegetable korma and curried chickpeas with spinach so I cooked a bit of rice and made a salad and had way too much food. It was still pretty tasty even though I’m not really that fond of korma curries.
I’ll be donating blood tomorrow afternoon if all goes well. After that I will be picking up my new glasses which is kind of exciting since I’ve had this pair for five years or more. The new ones are similar to what I already have except the new ones will have an anti-glare coating which apparently is better on the eyes. I will reserve judgement on that as it was another add-on charge for some fairly expensive glasses. Less expensive single vision lenses are now a distance memory for me, just as contact lenses are.
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Chaos of life (also known as odds and ends)
After I posted about the thefts from our car, I did contact the insurance company, only to find out our policy had lapsed some time ago and we’d have been in major trouble if we had anything major happen. So it turned out to be something of a blessing in disguise as who knows when we’d have discovered the problem. It all came down to some poor communication when our bank, who acted as agent for us, changed to a different company and we wanted to stay with the one we had and our actions were a result of a misunderstanding of procedure at the time. Â Anyway, we are insured again and will just replace items stolen out of pocket.
Even though I really loved my camera that was stolen, I’m a bit excited at the idea of choosing a new camera. There are a few possibilities that present themselves and all of them have yet to be released here. I won’t buy without having a model to hold in my hands and try out it might be a few weeks until that is possible. The current contenders are Canon’s new G15, which I believe is due for release any time now. This is a couple steps up from the camera that was stolen. Canon is the brand I’ve been buying for some time so the advantage is familiarity with their system and a certain amount of trust on the quality. I am also eyeing a couple of the Olympus mirrorless PEN cameras. I was rather keen on the current mini model that was released last year, partly due to the option of getting it in purple. Alas, the newer models don’t have those color options so I will likely stick with something more traditional. But it would have been neat to have a purple camera. :)
I was invited to a Nutrimetic party last Friday and decided I’d go despite the product line being full of makeup, which I don’t usually wear. I hadn’t seen this friend for a couple of years or more and I was rather keen for us to reconnect in the real world. We’ve been in touch online in some vague sort of way most of this time but we haven’t had a good chat in a long time . I’ve been to my friend’s house before but it was during the day and has been a few years. These days I would just use my gps but now we don’t have one so I decided to use my iPad and hope for the best. Maybe it would have worked better if Google maps was still an option. The new Apple maps didn’t do a great job. I did get there but had to stop about five times to figure out where to go. It tried to send me off onto side roads instead of waiting until I got closer to my destination. Then when I finally found the street, it couldn’t help me get to the address so that I was driving back and forth along this street trying to figure out where the house was. I did get there, but was fifteen minutes late. Once there, it took me a while to settle in and I was a bit anxious with so many people I didn’t know. It did get better later on and I met a couple of people who I really liked. I didn’t buy anything though as we had another major expense show itself a couple hours before I left home. I will get to that shortly. By the end of the evening, I had a chance to talk to my friend and discovered our sons (who belonged to the same D&D group) are in similar situations with their lives and somewhat isolated. So we now have plans to reconnect properly and get out boys together too. It made the journey well worth the trouble. I had similar trouble getting out of the neighborhood when I left and ended up going in circles. The iPad app was most unhelpful and I had to stop and examine the map several times to work out where to go to get to the main road again. The program could pinpoint where I was easily enough. But giving me instructions on where to go didn’t happen…it assumed I was at another location and directed me from there and I never did work out where the starting point was. I did get home after a few mistakes of my own.Now I must backtrack a few hours to Friday afternoon. The Scientist and I went to the gym after he finished work, as has been our habit. We came home and he went off to have a shower while I took the dogs out for a walk. When I returned, he had not had his shower due to the hot water heater having died that afternoon. Always has to happen on a Friday, of course. The upside was that it wasn’t a long weekend and it’s not winter. I had to have a shower so went ahead and took one and expected it to be icy, but it wasn’t. Seems there was still a bit of warm water in the tank so that it was never uncomfortable for me. That was replaced yesterday and we are now $1500 poorer.
On the weekend, we had to make an emergency run to the vet when little boy dog got another seed in his ear. He didn’t cry out like last time but his behavior was quite uncharacteristic. He didn’t even bark at other people and animals when we got to the vet. Â It took a bit of work to find the seed and get it out but he was back to his normal self when he came out and ready to take on the world.
And today the Scientist and I went for our long overdue eye check ups. I’m getting new glasses as my current ones aren’t quite doing enough for me, especially when driving at night. I’ve had my current pair for at least five years now. I didn’t need any changes at my last appointment so I can’t complain too much. I’m not totally sure if the optometrist was as thorough with my eye tests as he could have been. I told him from the beginning about a field vision test I’d been given a few years ago that had a few issues and was supposed to have been follow up on. I didn’t get a recall on that back then but he didn’t suggest any follow up either. Also, I was somewhat disturbed that he took my glasses away and looked at them and was totally unaware of the fact they are multi-focal lenses until I pointed it out when he was offering possible options on new glasses. I’m thinking of going back to the previous optometrist and asking either for a follow up or copies of my records to take to the new one.
And this Friday, my first-born child will pass from childhood to adulthood. At least on paper. I have more to write on that later. Also, I still want to write about the visit Lego Lover and I made to the art gallery to see the Modern Masters  from Picasso to Warhol recently.