the eyes have it

My eyes are dry today. They tend to get dry anyway, but they are really dry today. You know your eyes are dry when you can hear yourself blink. I was laying in bed this morning, in the dark. The house was quiet except for a small sound...the sound of my blinking eyes. Is that sad or what? I need to go put some drops in. That will make them feel more normal and less like sandpaper rubbing against the inside of my lids. I'm gross, aren't I? Sorry. Isn't it just the way we all are---we don't really think about stuff until it starts to bother us. My eyes and I have quite a history together. They've been with me for nearly 40 years. For the most part I like my gray eyes. Not really blue, not really green, just a gray sort of color, but I like them. Things started going awry when I was in first grade. My vision was not what it should be....I had to go look at 3D books at the eye drs. office along with an exam. He informed me, well really my mom, that I needed glasses. Oh, great. So my vision got worse over the years until I wasn't just wearing glasses for reading but for pretty much all my waking hours. It didn't really bother me all that much. It was what it was. (though I must say, in the 70's and early 80's glasses were huge! The frames I had took up half my face.) After my junior year of highschool I decided I wanted contacts. Touching my eyeball kind of grossed me out, but I figured I could do it without causing myself too much pain. Well, things worked out pretty well for me until I turned 30. Then I got dry eyes. This is not a good thing when one wears contacts. My eyes were dry and the contacts irritated them even more. I spent several months with red eyes.... looking like I was either constantly on a crying jag or that I'd just come off of a major drinking binge. This was NOT a good look for me so I went back to wearing glasses. Now, I was more comfortable in the eye department, but I wished I didn't have to wear glasses. They were a pain in the neck. Smudges on the glass drove me nuts, going from cold outside to warm inside temps caused them to fog up. They were constantly sliding down my nose. Ugh. So I made the decision that I was going to get LASIK surgery. That was a huge step for me. The surgeon was going to laser my cornea. Now that gave me pause..... I went to the office for an entire day of tests. (looking at psychedelic slides that appeared to be from a bad 70's art show, a machine that gave a computerized read out of the topography of my eye---I did not know our eyes really aren't smooth?!) The day of the surgery the surgeon told me that the laser machine would do all the work. I would lose my vision and everything would go gray for just a few seconds while my cornea was being flapped over. Now if that doesn't make your heart beat faster I don't know what will. Still I trusted this man with my vision. It didn't hurt at all and was over quickly. ( I mean this is one surgery that I couldn't be knocked out for--AND I had to have my eyes open! So, I saw what was coming at me!) I could immediately see! No blurriness!! I remember getting up and saying to him that this is the closest thing to a modern day miracle. I had to wear big plastic shields on my eyes at night so I didn't rub my eyes while I was sleeping. I resembled the lead character in that 60's movie, The Fly. I actually frightened my 4 year old niece with that look!

I've been really happy with my 20/20 vision for the past 3 and a half years. It was well worth it......but I still need to go get those eye drops!!