Glasses

I picked up new glasses yesterday. It was a trip to get my annual glasses prescription that launched this entire chunk of strange turmoil.

For the last few months, I’ve been wearing my old glasses with a sticker on one lens (the sticker is called a “Fresnel lens” sticker and functions like a temporary prism lens) to adjust for my left eye being unable to turn all the way to the side. The great opthamologist who ordered that initial MRI prescribed the sticker before we knew about the tumor, but she didn’t want to fill out a new prescription until she had a chance to figure out what was causing the left eye issue. Of course, what they found out pushed the eye exam off the table.

After surgery, the left eye improved a bit, and the neurosurgery folks say it will continue to improve for the next 6-12 months. In the meantime, I’ve been walking around with that damned temporary Fresnel sticker on my left side. The lens is pretty decent at reducing the amount of double vision, but it is constructed of a bunch of little vertical ridges that catch the glare of any light in the room. Also, my actual prescription for nearsightedness hadn’t been updated, so everything at a distance was fuzzy. Between the fuzziness, remaining double vision, and constant glare, nothing has looked quite right for a while.

I didn’t expect the new glasses to make me so happy. They have a prism built in to the left lens and are updated for this year’s nearsightedness – suddenly everything is in sharp focus! I can read at a distance! I can see things clearly in a room that has lamps! It almost feels like an unexpected leap forward in recovery. Yay!