Dreaming for the glory of glasses

Alright eyes, we got this. Don’t let me down, eyes. This year is our year. Got it. Alright, let’s DO this.

That was the pep talk my lovely, grey eyes got yesterday morning all through breakfast, all through transit, all through the rainy walk, and every step up the five flights of stairs to my opthalmologist’s office.

Yesterday was my annual eye appointment.

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This appointment I dream of for 365 days, hoping, praying, begging for my eyes to finally falter in the presence of my opthalmologist.

I am obsessed with glasses, been so ever since one of my elementary school besties showed up to class in an oversized pair of pink specs. I loved them! I had to have them!

When I was diagnosed with Dear Diabetes shortly after and told my diabetic eyes could be a thing of concern, I swear to you that was one of the happiest days of my life. My parents were near tears and I’m practically jumping for joy. (I was nine, what can I say, glass half full girl!)

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Friends know if they wear glasses, I’ll be trying them. I mean seriously, how could this face NOT be granted the glory of glasses???

But noooooo, year after year, blinding appointment after blinding appointment, they keep regaling the perfection of my eyes, exclaiming they’re getting better with age, no diabetic spots, and that once, majorly noticeable wandering eye, it’s majorly dissipated.

They wait for me to smile, but instead get a grimace.

I. Want. Glasses.

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These eyes NEED glasses!

So yesterday, I’m sitting in the office noticing every seat filled with someone in glasses. Could this be my year, I thought. Surely, everyone in glasses is a sign, I thought. I am getting older, after all. Eyes fail with age, right? Right???

My eyes are dilated. The room starts to blur. One word fills my head over and over: Please. Please. Please. Please. Pleeeeeeeeeeease.

I’m in the office. I see an information placard on age-related macular degeneration. Symptoms include yellow-white deposits that mess with photoreceptors causing impaired vision.

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Hmm…

I’ve been experiencing major eye irritation for months. Lots of thin eye goop that causes a burning sensation. I thought it was the circulating dust, or allergies, but maybe it’s AMD.

Squinting my eyes, I put my face right close to the sign, practically nose touching it, and read further.

Oh crud.

This is NOT good.

Abnormal blood vessels growing in my macula!

Leaking blood and other fluids!

Complete vision loss!

Oh crud! Oh crud! Oh crud!

I want glasses. I don’t want diseased eyes.

My specialist walks in, sticks a blinding light through my dead eyes. Looking good, she says.

Erm, I stutter.

Yes??? she waits.

Erm, you don’t see leaking blood?

Noooo??? she queries.

I start talking a mile a minute, telling her about the burning sensation in my eyes, how they get real itchy, and painful, how I’m sticking my fingers in there trying to get what’s causing the pain out practically every minute, and that I think it might be age-related macular degeneration, and that my eyes are gonna fall out, all the while my stomach fluttering with opposing excitement and fear. Hoorah to glasses. Eek to dead eyes.

She pauses. I swear to stop from bursting out laughing. (Note: she knows my great desire for glasses). You have dry eyes, she said.

That’s all.

They’re not dying.

They’re atypical diabetic eyes.

She hands me a sample of gel drops.

No glasses for you!

Once again spurned by damn perfect eyesight.

Sigh.

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