Oh my god, you guys. I went into work today, and didn't bring my glasses, and I am DYING. I didn't realize how dependent I'd become on wearing them over the last few months. How do I get my good vision back?
They're at hoooooooooome!! How do people DO this?!
I don't think I could forget my glasses because i can't see enough to leave the house without them.
They're at hoooooooooome!! How do people DO this?!
Personally, I don't. I couldn't begin to work without my glasses. Equally, though, there's no chance I could forget them at home, because I wouldn't be able to get to work in the first place. I have on a couple of occasions been late to work because I couldn't find my glasses in the morning and it took me forever to find them. It's difficult to find things when you can't see.
I now have a pair of glasses I use specifically for finding my real glasses.
I keep spare reading glasses in different locations, including my computer backpack. (I did once manage a day once without them. Lots of leaning in to the screen.)
I used to keep my glasses in exactly two places -- right next to my bed before I went to sleep, and on the bathroom shelf next to the box of contact lenses I replaced them with in the morning. (If I put them elsewhere I'd have to shuffle around gently patting the furniture until help arrived.)
My vision hasn't changed in about fifteen years but my vision insurance has greatly improved, so I started buying extra pairs every year or so, and leaving them in strategic places -- my glove compartment in case a contact popped out while driving, or in my office in case whatever I was reading caused my contacts to shrivel in my eyes from rage. But now I have spare glasses all over the place, like a breadcrumb path if Hansel and Gretel stopped commuting to work or going anywhere, and just spent the past year walking around in circles inside their 900 sq ft house.
I am generally a person who accumulates duplicates of things out of a vague sense of planning, and Jammies is generally a person who says "WHY DO WE HAVE ELEVEN TAPE DISPENSERS?!"
I learned on Monday that my corneas are too thin for LASIK. Now I have an upcoming consultation for this bizarre new procedure where they open up your eye and insert a permanent contact lens behind your iris? What could go wrong, right?
I'm impossibly smug about the fact that my lifelong myopia has meant that all I have to do in middle age is remove my glasses and I can still focus at six inches. Revenge of the myope.
10: IIRC my grandma got something like that 10-15 years ago. All's well.
10- I'm waiting for the version that will stream the internet directly into your eye.
We're probably just a few years away from having to pay a premium for ad-free lens implants.
I am so blind that the idea of misplacing my glasses/contact lens is ... both terrifying and hilarious. I literally have never not known where they were. (I mean, occasionally, yes, I know that they are not on my nightstand and are instead partially under the bed, but .... that's still knowing where they are.)
Definitely on Team Severe Correction here. My wife and my son both misplace their glasses a lot, because they aren't critical for their lives at all, and I do not relate.
(Getting contacts for non-work days, such that I could actually use plain sunglasses, has been a radical change in summertime wear, though. Prescription sunglasses never made enough sense and were always too much of a hassle since you would always need to have both pairs of glasses with you.)
I've been procrastinating for a week-plus on a scary thing, which is to message my primary care doctor through the patient portal and say, "Hi, I think I'm transgender, should we talk about things?" Doctor is fine, medical practice is great and actually has a specialist in trans medicine on staff, it just feels like the first step that would go on my Permanent Record and can't easily be walked back. This is turning out to be a lot of work.
I'm impossibly smug about the fact that my lifelong myopia has meant that all I have to do in middle age is remove my glasses and I can still focus at six inches.
My mom wore glasses as a child. Then as she aged and her lenses hardened, or whatever lenses do, they hardened into perfect vision, and she stopped wearing glasses as a teen and didn't need them again until she was in her late 50s. In her 70s, she still only wears them for reading sometimes.
I just got my Warby Parker box. First time I am trying it. I need a backup pair because I broke the two most recent prior ones.
18 is like me. I had glasses in high school and college that I needed if I was in the back row but rarely used. I found them a couple years ago and they were way too strong for me so I think my vision now is pretty much correction-unnecessary. But I can't read things super close any more.
About a year ago, I broke my main pair of glasses and was barely able to get home (on the bus). Then, before I could replace them, my older pair that I was wearing broke. So, I found an optometrist that was still open and went to get an exam. I was wearing a mask made of a bandana and a coffee filter (as was the style at the time). I picked them up after the place was closed to customers. They handed them out the door.
18. This sounds like what happened to my mum in her late 30s, when she went from wearing glasses more or less permanently to not needing any correction at all in the space of about three years. Her ophthalmologist said that this is common. On the other hand, I need them more and more.
17: On the one hand, you don't need to move ahead any faster than you want to. On the other hand, if you're trying to get yourself to make the appointment, I bet you'll be happier once you've done it and you're moving forward. Either way, there're no wrong answers.
Just in the last 5 years, I've gone out over the line with small print in bad light. And lately "small" print means like a regular book and "bad" light means PNW ambient cloudy daytime. I have readers permanently residing in a couple of coat pockets, and a couple more around the house.
Yesterday, in honor of the former president's crappy lawyers and Joe Pesci's birthday, I watched the clip of My Cousin Vinny cross-examining the eyewitness about her glasses/vision. A true classic. Law students should watch that move once a week for 16 weeks, and then take a final. For full credit.
17: Ooof, yes, I can imagine the past feeling much safer and secure, even if it felt deeply wrong, and the future is freedom but also fraught with so many new situations.
My son is singing Emily Dickinson poems to the tune from Pokémon. Maybe I need to cut down on his internet use.
11 is me as well, which is good, as looking at things from six inches away is a significant part of my job.
I have vision insurance now, so I just got a new pair of glasses for the first time in many years. I actually need to go over to LensCrafters soon to pick them up. I'll still mostly rely on contacts, but it'll be good to have a backup.
I got my first round Covid vax this morning, Moderna. No immediate reaction to it. My county health center was extremely efficient and reasonably well organized for it.
Our state is trying new things to fix its botched rollout of the vaccines, so if anyone has a 75+ year old who needs a shot I'd like to borrow them.
My far focal point without corrected vision is about four inches in front of my nose. If I forgot my glasses, I couldn't get to work, even if work is currently my basement office. I had bifocals at 8. My mom's vision is worse, and I just got her genes, I guess -- my sisters' vision ranges from perfect to 'maybe glasses while driving.' The good news is that I've had the same prescription since 18 so they're not getting worse.
17: Seconding LB. If you want the appointment and are trying to talk yourself into it, that's fine. If you don't want it and you're trying to talk yourself into it, you don't have to.
Thanks very much LB, heebie, Cala; I was trying to talk myself into the appointment and I think just needed to bounce it off imaginary friends, because I've now written the damn doctor and feel much better.
How did nearsighted cavemen manage? Such a mystery.
I think they did the knapping for the clan.
Honestly I preferred this site with the cock jokes
11 Same here. I use three pairs of glasses, distance, distance prescription sunglasses, and computer distance. No need for reading. Last year my distance glasses that I'd bought in NY about three or four years ago broke and with the pandemic just starting I knew I'd have to find a local replacement. I bought a pair of Calvin Klein browline glasses that were delivered to me because we were in lockdown. 2 weeks later they broke. Went back when they re-opened and they replaced them. A few weeks later they broke again. Repeat twice. And yet once more just last week. Worst glasses I've ever bought.
38: Cruel. Everyone here is struggling to see six inches.
Also I brought my glasses to work today and it's going great.
One simple trick for workday satisfaction.
My recent eye adventures have involved eyesight degrading over the last year or so. Optometrist says probably cataracts, ophthalmologist says yes early cataracts but more testing needed at other facility, and then yes very early cataracts but too early for surgery after the testing go back to optometrist. So I am not that happy at the moment. How many fucking old age markers can I cram together in a year or so. Speaking of which I now have a vaccine appointment for next week. But it is an hour and a half away. For a while I had one even a bit further away but a mile or two from my childhood home. Superseded it when this one came up so as to not cross state lines for immoral porpoises.
Am happy that local interlibrary loans seem to have become unstuck again after seemingly freezing for a month or two. Four new books on the pile.
Much less the beer that made Bill Famey walk us.
Yay Jacinda!
Moving to somewhere where sun protection became important also spurred my transition from wearing glasses only to wearing mostly contacts. Prescription sunglasses are unwieldy; I can't just move them to the top of my head when I move from light to dark places because then I can't see anything, and I don't want to be fumbling for my other glasses every time I move from outside to inside. A very positive side effect was that I no longer have problems seeing when hiking in the rain---a major problem that I had when I used to hike with glasses.
46: My solution is to fumble for the other set of glasses. An alternative is those glasses that adapt to the light level but I've heard mixed reviews.
Mask use has made me think harder about contact lenses than anything else. Fogging up the glasses has been annoying all the past year and is only getting worse in the cold and snow.
Didn't they used to have prescription glasses that got more tinted the more sun there was? My dad had a pair of those.
Yes, I hate glare so I have the UV sensitive glasses. They're bad for the couple of minutes after you walk into a dim room when they're at maximum darkness, and I'm not sure that they don't look weird, but I like them overall.
The used to look really weird indoors.
The ones they have now fade to perfectly clear indoors, not tinted at all. The only issue is the lag time, and possibly that glasses aren't styled exactly like sunglasses so they're kind of dorky sunglasses.
That's what the optical tech said to me, but it's also what the optical tech said to me in 1996.
I swear it's true about them being clear.
45: but it's "Mel Famey"! Or "Mill Famey" or something like that. Or am I hallucinating?
Also, love my transition lenses with twelve whole hearts, 100% worth the premium.
54: Alas, I believe you are right.
53: Have you checked that with someone who doesn't need glasses to see?
57 is a real question. I'm going to order a pair of glasses as soon as I can find where I put the prescription.
Just checked with Newt. They're clear.
My aunt just got diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. She's 400 miles away. I hate this year.
We should know soon whether she's strong enough for treatments to potentially be worth trying. But I feel so helpless and far away. And she's not yet vaccinated and I'm not yet eligible.
Oh, Sand, that's awful. Wishing you both strength.
Thanks all. I just needed to tell someone outside.
61: Oh, that's awful. I'm so sorry, Sand.
Sand, I'm so sorry. If there's no border separating you and you're not especially high risk for severe illness, caseload is low enough you should get on a plane to say goodbye. Wear an N-95 if you can get one, a good one, in the airport and on the plane, and you should be OK. This situation is why the rest of us cancelled all our travel. For the people that need to.
Ydnew, thanks. That helps the feelings of travel guilt. Will be figuring out plans once she's out of the hospital and so accessible for visits.
And I didn't mean to kill the thread-- I like reading about glasses and such.
I'm going to travel to see my mom and don't feel much guilt over it. It's been a year. She is either deteriorating because she's not getting enough visits or she's very rapidly failing to the extent that there's a good chance she won't recognize me in July or whenever it is I'm vaccinated.
I never had to wear glasses until I hit my 40s, and they're still the light "distance vision" type. I now leave a pair in the car and have picked up just in 2019 my first computer distance glasses -- and they made a huge difference. I'm complaining a lot less about having to zoom way in and out to read screens.
My dad used to joke about how he needed to get glasses because he couldn't get longer arms. One day, I realized I was living the joke except I already had glasses and needed bifocals.
I'm trying to find an adjective that captures my admiration for comment 70. It's one of the best things said in public in I don't know how long.
I can't talk myself into using bifocals or contacts or getting corrective surgery. I have glasses for distance and for reading computer screens. The mean kids at work call me "six eyes."
It's like you're a damaged spider.
You mean he should get reading glasses too.
I have bifocals and hate them, but there's not a great other option. Having your peripheral field of view always blurry just sucks, and things like working in the kitchen, or dealing with some car controls, where half of things fall in the near correction area and half in the other, is so disorienting.
On the veldt, having blurry peripheral vision while operating your car could get you killed.
70 summarizes my exact feelings, as someone who has made extraordinary efforts to stay home the last 11 months. Go, whenever you are able, with the good wishes and care of everyone here.
72 is important too. I'm so sorry, Moby. Glad you're going. I haven't read the research but I can't imagine that isolation isn't a major driver of deterioration for people with memory issues.
It's not like nobody else visits now, but it used to be all afternoon visits or trips out for the day, which is not really allowed. You can do it, but then there's a (very reasonable) quarantine from the rest of the residents.
My phone right now is predicting a high of 21 and a low of 1 on Monday. That's so bonkers that I can't make sense of those numbers. I bet we've hit the teens maybe once or twice since I moved to Texas twenty years ago.
Joe Biden is defeating climate change!
I just learned how to close something in the Xbox and switch apps without turning off and restarting the console. Now i can switch from Netflix to Prime easier.
I can see my mother, and talk with her, but I can't touch her, and she is deteriorating quite fast. It's horrible. She's Belsen skinny and falls asleep after ten minutes of conversation. I have not visited all week and I feel a disconcerting mixture of relief and shame.
84- Is that the coldest it's been since your house was lifted up? Do you need to make sure your pipes won't freeze? I don't imagine that's something they're very careful about when designing houses in Texas.
That's why the top of Mount Everest is so warm.
89: When I last lived in Houston there was a cold snap over Christmas where it was in the teens for a day or two. Much damage to pipes. Especially because a number of homes had pipes that ran through uninsulated paces above the ceiling combined with people being away for Christmas. As I recall it caused similar (or more) $$ damage than a hurricane earlier that year Alicia that had done over a billion dollars in damage.
Insulation is very important. As I learned to my cost.
My aunt died this afternoon. This stupid, horrible pandemic.
I'm sorry for you and the rest of her family.
A terrible thing, JPJ. So sorry.
So sorry for you and your family, JPJ.