It's A Miracle...I can SEE!

Magic has discovered how different life can be when one can actually see :)

At this year's eye doc appt, Magic asked about using contact lenses to see - with the main idea being that it would also enable vision under water :D

It's amazing what they've come up with these days...a progressive contact lens. Whoda thought it?

In the middle, it's designed for distance, and then as it moves out toward the edges, it progressively gets more powerful for closer seeing.

It's awesome to see again....

I also learned that my "bad" left eye is mostly for show. I get peripheral vision through that eye, but other than that...nada.

Don't cry for me though. I've had amblyopia (more info about that if you care is here:

http://www.strabismus.org/amblyopia_lazy_eye.html)

for my whole life (well as long as I can remember anyway).

I was the kid with the patch stuck over one eye in kindergarten and a few years in grade school. My Mom drew pictures on the patch every day, so I was happy (and looked extra "special" I'm thinking).

I wore glasses and a patch for a few years...didn't do anything to improve my vision, so I got to ditch the glasses by the time I was a bit older.

They didn't improve my vision any, but they did look really cool (not).

Then, when I was a junior in high school they tried the chemical patching (drops in the "good" eye to blur it out, drops in the "bad" eye to make it focus harder). That worked really well...went from 20/200 in my poor amblyopic eye to 20/25 over the course of that year. It was great, but it dropped right back down once we stopped the drops.

My "good" eye was always 20/20. As it turns out, it's the only one I've been using to read or to see for that matter. It's all I've ever really known (because while my "bad" eye did improve, it was only while my "good" eye was blinded by the drops, so it didn't look much different from my perspective).

I don't have depth perception like you do, but I've developed something that works for me (I've never crashed into anything while I'm driving or run into walls because I misjudged where it actual was).

I can't see 3D much either...which is kinda a bummer, as in theory it seems pretty cool.

As time has gone by, as with most things, my eyesight has gotten a bit worse. The last few years, I've been going through the "reading" glasses and finally got the good ol' progressive prescription lenses. They worked well enough, but I never had them when I needed them (I always was losing them) and it was a choice between seeing detail (my far vision is fine) and sunglasses.

And then there is diving. My arms got way too short to easily read my gauges. And this is what finally led me to try contact lenses (or LENS (singular) in my case lol). Small blessing that I only use one eye, so only have to have one lens - the contact sets I buy will go twice as far (small thing, but hey, it's all good).

This vision thing was annoying enough that I decided I'd rather stick my finger in my eye putting a lens in, than be half blind up close under water.

I'm learning to deal with the lens, and it's coming along.

Usually is only taking three tries to get the lens in (and mostly this is because I get it in inside out at least once :) I think too much, my doc says, and it'll come with practice.

I'm crazy good at getting the lens out, though, so that's at least half the battle. :)

So...there ya go...Magic can see again.

Food is not mysterious as it travels from the table toward my face...I can actually see the facial features of those sitting nearby...My arms are actually long enough - again - to make reading without glasses a reality.

I'm kinda wondering how "progressive" this contact can get, but I'm not spending too much of my time worrying about it...it'll be what it is, and I'm just happy I can see now.

I'm looking forward to seeing the difference it makes in my gauges and camera underwater.

...think happy thoughts...

I AM!

:D

Aloha!

M&G