Boldly going where many have gone before

Posted by Ms. Babble

October 16, 2007

Tomorrow I’m going under the “laser knife”. Lasik surgery.

I can’t say exactly when my vision started to deteriorate. My guess would be around age 10. By 13, I was already wearing contact lenses. The day after the doctor taught me how to put the lenses into my eyes, I was back at school and miserable. It took me over an hour that morning to get the little slips of plastic into my eyes and afterwards they insisted on causing great discomfort to me. They slipped. Felt heavy. Made my eyes tear uncontrollably. I sat at my desk with a little bottle of saline solution and a box of kleenex. I didn’t learn a damn thing that day.

Year after year I struggled with having poor vision. Being an active person makes having to wear glasses or contact lenses even more of a burden. I played sports a majority of my adolescents and often found my contacts falling out or completely slipping into the twilight zone under my eyelid in the middle of a jump ball or lay-up. It never failed to happen on game day that the coach would have to replace me on the court when I started to point wildly at my eyes.

In basic training, I was forced to wear the army issued lenses. At the firing range one rainy day, I found myself completely blind by the whipping wind and large wet drops that fell onto my glasses. With a Drill Sergeant standing behind me and shouting instructions, I had no choice but to keep firing at objects that may or may not be my target. After I spent 40 rounds he made me stop and screamed, “What the hell are you shooting at? You were firing at a target three lanes away from your own!”. oops.

After that incident, they ordered me to wear the contact lenses I had snuck into boot camp. I graduated as a sharp shooter, 34 out of 40.

My poor vision tales could go on and on. And I’m sure they’re similar to many of the millions of other people that have to adjust their lives to wearing glasses or contact lenses.

But today is the last day for me. I’m half fondly wearing my glasses for the last time as I type this. In 24 hours I’ll join the mass of people who don’t have to pay for eye care insurance. The mass of people who can pocket $500 a year that would normally be spent at the optometrist. The mass of people who can open their eyes under water and become Air Force pilots. I want to be one of those people who are free to roam the earth without worrying if their saline solution will explode mid flight in their suitcase.

I can’t wait to be a part of your club.

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