Eyes

Four out of seven have had their eyes examined in the last month. Jonathon has his new glasses - I still don't have a picture because he gets mad at me when I try to snap one - and Evan & Ryan are doing better than fine with their eyesight. Amanda had her eyes checked, however, and the eye doctor said that she will definitely need to have glasses by next year. He said she could technically get them now but, if it were him, he'd wait another year.

Amanda is only six years old. I got my glasses when I was 10, but I really needed them at age nine. My parents didn't believe me when I kept telling them that I couldn't see. They thought I just wanted glasses because my best friend had them. Needless to say they shouldn't have made me wait. My eyes were so bad that when we drove around the mound (in Angola, IN), I couldn't read the movie titles on the marquees. I remember telling my dad that once and he did a double take. Still, he didn't do anything about getting my eyes checked.

The school nurse told my folks that I had to get my eyes examined. My grades rapidly went from A's to D's because I couldn't read the blackboard. My desk was in the back to boot. Anyway, I got my eyes checked and I found out I had 20/2000 vision in one eye and 20/1500 in the other. I got nice little plastic frames with HEAVY thick glass lenses. They gave me the worst headaches for a while. Thank goodness for the new lenses that are plastic and lightweight!

Over the years my eyes have changed a little. The prescription is still around the same strength. I am 45 and have had bifocals since I was 41. They're so expensive I hate them. I'm not really sure they help either since I sometimes have to take my glasses off in order to focus in on something.

I think the reason my eyes got so bad is because as soon as I could read (in kindergarten) I read everything in sight. I read like today's kids play video games. I still read a lot. I love, love, love to read. Amanda's like me. She wants to read all of the time. She reads chapter books and sounds out large three syllable words before I can even blurt them out. She's reading Sleeping Beauty right now, though she should be sleeping.

Yeah, she's really going to need those glasses. I refuse, though, to let finances get in the way of her eyesight. It was the underlying reason my folks didn't want to get me glasses. They now regret that because the eye doctor told them years ago that I might lose my sight as I get older. I want to be sure we take care of Amanda's eyesight while it's in our power to do something about it.

Something to think about: corrective lenses CAN correct your eyesight to some degree if caught early enough. My eyes improved a little after getting glasses. If you don't get glasses but you really need them, you might be putting your eyesight at risk for the future.