Back in the mid 80’s when I was serving in the military I was posted to a base in Japan. As a kid of 24 I thought I knew everything, but military service had knocked a lot of the cockiness out of me, and I was starting to smarten up about a lot of things in life.
My buddies and I were on leave in Tokyo one weekend. They had all gotten shit faced the night before and were back at the hotel sleeping off the inevitable hangover. But I had been a little smarter than they were and had nursed a couple of drinks throughout the evening. I knew I was never going to have a better chance to see Tokyo, and I didn’t want to spend the weekend wasted, sleeping it off in a fleabag hotel room.
I was walking down a street that was full of sidewalk vendors, and as I walked along an older gentleman wearing a fairly strong pair of glasses came up beside me.
“Sojer you mallied?” he asked.
“Nope, I’m not married. I don’t even have a girlfriend right now.” I replied.
I am going to forget about trying to write the way he talked, because he was a little hard to understand, however I managed to get the gist of it.
“I have 2 daughters. If you marry the older one of them I give you $10,000.00 US. If you marry my younger daughter I will give you $15,000.00 US. You only have to stay married long enough for them to get their citizenship and then you can be free again.” He said.
The prospect sounded interesting. Back then ten grand was a decent chunk of change, and I sure could use it when I got back to the states. So I told him I might be interested if his daughters were reasonably attractive. He suggested that I come with him to his house, and I could meet his 2 daughters.
When we arrived at Mr. Fujimoto’s house he introduced me to his wife, and then to his oldest daughter. Both his wife and his older daughter wore glasses that appeared to be about the same strength as Mr. Fujimoto’s glasses. His wife was either Czechoslovakian, or possibly Romanian; however her English was fairly understandable. Ruth, the older daughter was extremely attractive and spoke very good English. Mr. Fujimoto called his other daughter down from upstairs and when she came down the stairs I could see that she had a knockout figure. But when I looked at her glasses I realized that they were the most awful looking pair of glasses I had ever seen. The lenses were a good 3/4 inch thick and were deeply dished inward in the front. The front dish was done in a circle with a flat area around the edge of the lens, and I could see that the rear of the lens was done in a similar way. The way she moved around gave me a pretty good indication that her vision, even with those thick glasses, was very poor.
But she was so beautiful I began to think that I could put up with this almost blind lady for the 3 years that it would take to obtain her citizenship. After all she would be worth 5 grand a year to me. The mixture of the Japanese features of her father and the Balkan features of her mother had created 2 very lovely ladies, of which the youngest daughter was the most attractive. It would be simple enough for me to remove her glasses when we were in bed and I could gaze at her lovely face.
So, I discussed the proposal with Mr. Fujimoto and his wife. He really wanted to immigrate to the USA. He worked as a troubleshooter and repairman for one of the Japanese auto makers that had been selling a large number of cars in the US market. His company would give him a job in the states if he was there, but they were not willing to sponsor his immigration. He had decided that his best chance would be to marry his 2 daughters off in sham marriages to US servicemen, and once the girls had their citizenship the marriages could be terminated, and the girls could sponsor their parents.
Like I said before, I wasn’t doing anything better with my life at the time, and it sounded as if it could be easy money to me. So I decided that I would marry Suzanne. It wasn’t like it was going to be for life or anything. I agreed to the proposal and we discussed the necessary steps that we were going to have to take. I really wasn’t going to have to do any work other than to sign a lot of paperwork, since Mr. Fujimoto already had an immigration lawyer working for him and things should flow fairly smoothly.
It took a couple of weeks to get everything set up for the wedding. I invited a few of my buddies, and everything went reasonably well. I had told the guys what I was doing, because Mr. Fujimoto had asked me if I could find someone to marry Ruth, and when my friend Brad met Ruth at the wedding he immediately wanted to marry her. But Brad had to fight for Ruth, because Chuck and Jim also showed a lot of interest in the proposal. In the end Brad won out, and we had another wedding a couple of weeks later.
I had applied for married housing on the base, but there was a waiting list, so Suzanne and I had to live apart for the first couple of months. I knew that she was doing all the necessary things so that she could accompany me back to the states when my tour ended the following year. She had been going through the background checks, and the medicals and I was wondering if her terrible vision would be a major stumbling block to the plans of her father.
But Mr. Fujimoto had apparently thought of that possibility as well. Back in the mid 80’s contact lenses in the power that Suzanne required were just not available. But there was a company that made rigid gas permeable lenses in custom sizes, and custom powers. So Mr. Fujimoto had ordered a pair of contacts for Suzanne. She had a very hard time getting used to wearing the hard contact lenses, but she persevered, and by the time she went for her medical she was able to see well enough to read the 20/30 line with her contacts in. This was a good thing, because with her glasses Suzanne could barely see the 20/100 line on an eye chart, and when combined with her poor visual acuity the thickness of her glasses would probably have caused her to fail the medical. But with her contacts in the doctor could only see that she wore corrective lenses, and he noted that her 20/30 visual acuity was with corrective lenses in. She was in good health except for her eyesight, and she passed her medical with no problem.
Soon after Suzanne had completed her applications and had sent everything in a house on the base came open, so we moved in together. These houses are not the greatest homes in the world, but they were furnished, and they were cheap.
Ruth and Suzanne spoke excellent English. Mr. Fujimoto had been trying to move to the USA for a number of years, and he made sure that the girls were fluent in the language. Actually he and his wife spoke fairly good English as well and they all spoke English around the house. So Suzanne and I had no problem communicating.
I have to admit that I had originally looked at Suzanne with dollar signs in my eyes. But after we were living together as man and wife I got to know her, and I was beginning to like her a lot. Suzie had just turned 21, and was 2 years younger than Ruth. By this time I had turned 25, so we were all similar ages. Even Brad was only 26.
I was starting to become a bit curious about Suzanne’s lousy eyesight. I enjoyed the fact that she depended on me to guide her around whenever we went anywhere, but I also wondered if she was going to go blind before I was able to get rid of her. I had not had any experiences with glasses wearers until this point in my life and I didn’t even know what was wrong with her eyes that required her to wear such thick glasses that didn’t even give her good eyesight.
I asked Suzanne what was wrong with her eyes, and she told me that she had congenital progressive degenerative myopia. That was quite a handle to get my mind around. And I didn’t have a clue what that meant, so Suzanne explained it to me. Congenital meant that she was likely very myopic from birth. Then her myopia progressed rapidly, and sometimes aggressively. So far her vision was not as bad as it could be, because her retina’s, which were apparently stretched as thin as a wound up rubber band, were still firmly attached to the back of her eyeball, and she didn’t have any problems inside her eyeball – other than her eyeball being extremely elongated. That was probably bad enough, because that meant that she had to wear a very powerful corrective lens which minified everything so much that she had to get extremely close to things to see them, and even with the -36D glasses that she presently wore the minification only allowed her to see at 20ft what I could see at 100ft, which explained her visual acuity of 20/100. The probability was high that she would have problems with her eyes as she grew older, which was when the degenerative part of the myopia would come into play. I hated to admit that I didn’t even know for sure what myopia was, until Suzanne explained that it was just the proper terminology for being nearsighted.
Oh, and another thing – I had anticipated that her glasses would come off when we were in bed. That was not the case. Her eyesight was so bad without her glasses that she left them on even for making love. But the upside to that was that we made love a lot – so often in fact that without too much trouble Suzanne became pregnant.
As a soldier with a pregnant wife who was not even a resident of the US, since we were living on an American base my child would be considered an American citizen at birth. And being the mother of an American child was not going to hurt Suzanne’s prospects of becoming a legal resident. The wheels of bureaucracy turn fairly slowly, and by the time my tour was up we were within a month or so of her getting her green card. So I stayed on in Japan for that month, and then we were able to travel back to the west coast together.
I had some money saved – yes, I know, hard to believe that an American soldier might possibly have saved money even from before I went into the army, but I had, and I also saved a lot of money from my meager pay. That meant as a returning soldier I was in a lot better financial shape that many of the other guys were. And, since southern Orange County was experiencing a building boom back then I used my Army benefits to sign up for a real estate course. Before too long I had my license, and I went to work for a broker that had a deal to sell tract homes. The commissions were not great, but they were steady, and since both Suzanne and I were savers we were able to put money away towards our own house. Once we bought and paid for our own home I then went out and got my broker’s licenses so I could hire other agents to work for me.
Before the three years were up Suzanne and I had two lovely children. Andrew, our first born was born on the base in Japan, and Emily our daughter was born here in the US of A. Suzanne’s parents had seen Andrew when he was a baby, but they were waiting patiently for their green cards to be issued before they could see Emily. I had decided that I wasn’t going to divorce Suzanne, so I had already sponsored her mom and dad.
Even with her poor eyesight Suzie was a worker. She helped me set up the real estate office and she could often be found hunched over peering myopically over the books as she did payroll and the other necessary paperwork involved with running an office. And I swear that even with her lousy eyesight she could see dust from a mile away, because she kept our new house spotlessly clean. She was a great mother as well, always taking time to spend with the kids. I felt that I was a very fortunate man to have had her father come up to me that day back in Japan.
Suzie’s vision continued to deteriorate slowly. Each year saw her prescription become a bit stronger and her glasses got correspondingly thicker. I was terribly worried that she would go blind, and I had taken her to see some of the most noted eye doctors in the Los Angeles basin. They all gave me the same opinion. Suzie would not go completely blind as long as we watched her retinas carefully and she did not have a retinal detachment that wasn’t immediately repaired. When we were married her glasses were around -36D, and now after 4 years of marriage and 2 kids her latest prescription was right around -40D. I had purchased her special lenses for her newest glasses that came from Germany, and they didn’t look quite as awful as her old glasses did. I had hoped that the doctors would tell me that her eyes had gotten as bad as they possibly could, but such was not the case.
Even though her corrected eyesight was quite poor Suzie had a really good outlook on life. She loved me completely, and I loved her right back. I had even gotten over the fact that she needed to wear her glasses at all times, and that they would not come off her face even when she was making love. Sometimes, late at night I would sit there and watch Suzie sleeping, her glasses carefully set where she could easily fumble for them on the bedside table. With her glasses off she was probably the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and by now I felt that I was the luckiest guy in the world.
As time went on Suzie and I became quite wealthy from our endeavors in real estate. Suzie and I had purchased a number of homes ourselves, and Suzie seemed to have a real knack for knowing what had to be done to them to be able to sell them for a substantial profit. We held on to some of the homes, and rented them out. A couple of the houses were occupied by family members, as Suzie and Ruth’s parents lived in one of them, and Brad and Ruth lived in the other. Brad had been a little bit of a disappointment to us as he didn’t seem to have any initiative to get out there and make a lot of money. He was satisfied to turn wrenches at a local dealership and he never seemed to put in any extra effort. Mr. Fujimoto could also be considered a mechanic, however he was working for the same company that he worked for in Japan, and his services were in high demand. His company often flew him all over the US to troubleshoot problems with their cars.
Mrs. Fujimoto was very involved with her grandchildren. She spent a lot of time looking after Andrew and Emily, and she also looked after Brad and Ruth’s 2 children while Ruth worked. I had given Ruth the task of ensuring that all the newly completed tract homes I was selling were perfectly clean for the prospective purchasers, and she did an excellent job. She didn’t have to do any of the cleaning herself, but I know that she often did some of the work herself just to make sure that the house was cleaned to her high standards.
As Suzie and I made more and more money the only fly in the ointment was that her eyes kept getting worse and worse. Even now with her very strong -46D lenticular blended myodisc lenses she had in her latest glasses her visual acuity wasn’t much better than 20/150 and I had to make sure that if we went to a movie or anywhere she wanted to go that we could get close enough for her to see. Of course this meant that I sometimes felt that I was sitting pretty darned close to everything. She had been to see a specialist who had done a new type of laser treatment to reattach her retinas which had started to peel away from the back of her eyeball, and fortunately we had caught it soon enough that Suzie didn’t loose any more of her fragile vision.
Both Adam and Emily had needed glasses when they were around 10, but their glasses were very weak compared to the others in the family. I suspected that they would need stronger and stronger glasses as they got older, but it didn’t appear that they had gotten their mother’s exceptionally nearsighted eyes, as I had discovered that Suzie had started off wearing glasses almost from birth, and her first prescription was around -18D.
I was keeping a secret to myself. One of the specialists that had seen Suzie a number of times over the years had called me to tell me that there was a way that we could improve Suzie’s eyesight considerably. Recently they had been doing a procedure on cataract patients that they called a clear lens replacement. Using a microscopic tool the surgeon could cut a small incision in the eyeball, and he could slip a tiny pair of a tweezers in that could roll up the inner lens and bring it back out through the small incision. Then they could insert a lens back into the eye so that the patient would be able to see. The people that this procedure was designed to help were those who were blind from cataracts, and now they could have their sight restored without having to wear the really thick plus cataract glasses. Suzie would have to have her lens removed, but there were no replacement lenses that were minus, and that is what she would require to fix her severe myopia. But the doctor told me that by taking out the inner lens and not putting in another lens could reduce Suzie’s myopia by up to -20D. She would still require a -26D prescription, and she would need to carry two other pairs of glasses so that she could see up close and intermediate, but her vision could be much improved. At this time Suzie was 35 years old, so she still had more than half her life to live.
But I had gotten accustomed to having a wife who needed extremely powerful glasses. Even though these glasses didn’t correct her vision perfectly they did help a lot, and I had gotten used to her being very dependant on my assistance. Would having this operation reduce her dependency on me? I couldn’t answer that question, and that was why I hadn’t said anything to Suzie yet. Also, while the operation was supposedly a safe and non invasive procedure, it was still an operation and something could go wrong. As long as Suzie could see, albeit poorly, I was satisfied with her vision.
I still hadn’t said a word to Suzie about the possibility of an operation to improve her eyesight when I ran across a chance advertisement for a doctor who specialized in severe vision problems. Naturally I was looking for anything that could help Suzie – as long as it didn’t ruin the vision she still had. So I made an appointment for a consultation.
I was pretty impressed by Dr. Pavolov. He was a Russian eye doctor that had come to the states a number of years ago, and he had specialized in low vision patients ever since. Apparently he had a pretty decent success rate with his patients. He gave Suzanne a very thorough eye examination, and he checked her general health as well. He gave her a clean bill of health as far as her general well being was, but he told us that Suzie could be trained to have much better visual acuity. He also advised us that Suzie needed new lenses for her glasses that would give her much better vision.
I went into it in depth with Dr. Pavolov. He had tested Suzie’s vision, and he had discovered that Suzie needed 2 degrees of base in prism for each eye. Then she required another 2 degrees of base up prism for her right eye, and 1 degree of base down prism for her left eye. He felt that if he increased her spherical prescription by -5D, and changed the angle of astigmatism for both eyes that Suzie would be able to see much better.
“You see, your wife has been straining to see clearly for many years. Her eyes do not focus together at the same spot, and as a result she is always seeing everything she looks at a little blurred. The prism, along with a little tweaking of the angle of her astigmatism should bring her eyes back into focus, however she needs another -5D added to her spherical prescription to be able to make the best use of her ability to focus. And, since she hasn’t been able to see clearly for many years, I suggest that she comes in daily for a few weeks after she gets her new glasses so that one of my assistants can teach her how to see. When you look at something in the distance Sir, you do not strain to see it. Your eyes pass quickly over it, and your brain registers what you saw. Your wife can’t see these objects clearly enough for her brain to register what she saw, so she has to try to focus on the object, and the more she strains to focus clearly the more blur she sees.” Dr. Pavolov told us.
“So why does she require an increase in her spherical prescription?” I asked.
“I think that over the years her doctors have just given up on her eyesight. They have been giving her the best prescription that they can, but she hasn’t been able to see anything clearly enough to tell them that one lens or the other is the better lens. I think if we work with you on this matter we can improve Suzanne’s visual acuity to maybe 20/50, or even with luck we might get to 20/40. I can’t promise anything, but we will never know unless we try.” Dr. Pavolov said.
We ordered Suzie her new glasses. The lenses were going to be -51.00 x -4.50 x 30 with 2 degrees base in and 2 degrees base up for her right eye, and -51.00 x -5.00 x 165 with 2 degrees base in and 1 degree base down for her left eye. They told us that it would be at least 2 weeks before the glasses came in. Before we left I had another question for Dr. Pavalov.
“Suzie was prescribed very strong glasses at an early age. How likely is it that her eyes were not able to focus properly right from the start?” I asked.
“It is almost a 100% chance that she has had this problem all her life.” Dr. Pavolov replied.
Dr. Pavalov had also given us a list of food that we needed to get to give Suzie’s eyes the vitamins that they needed. She needed foods high in Beta Carotine and Luetin, and he had prescribed a supplement to be taken in pill form. So we went shopping for these items.
“Do you think we should possibly make an appointment with Dr. Pavolov for Lisa?” Suzie asked.
“It wouldn’t hurt. We will have to see what Brad and Ruth say.” I replied.
Lisa, our niece had just been prescribed her second pair of very strong minus glasses. Apparently her glasses did not correct her vision completely, so if Brad and Ruth were willing Suzie and I felt that Lisa should see Dr. Pavolov.
Suzie discussed Lisa’s eyesight with Ruth that evening. Ruth was all for starting Lisa on the regime of foods that Dr. Pavolov had recommended for Suzie, and she insisted that we take Lisa along to a visit with Dr. Pavolov. It definitely was unusual that Suzie had a very bad case of extreme myopia, but had not passed any of the extreme part on to our children. Ruth was no more myopic than her parents, but she and Brad had a little girl who apparently was going to take after her Aunt Suzie. The more I though of it the more I felt that Dr. Pavolov might be on the right track with his theory that Suzie wasn’t able to focus properly.
Once Suzie got her new glasses she felt that she was actually able to see much better. And after a couple of weeks of vision training her eyesight had improved considerably. Suzie was now able to see things that had formerly been just a blur to her. And little Lisa had been found to require prism in her glasses so that she could bring her eyes into focus. The prism and a few other slight modifications in her prescription along with the same vision training that Suzie was going through had made quite a difference in Lisa’s eyesight as well.
Now don’t get me wrong. Suzie did not have, nor would she ever have really good eyesight. After all she was looking at the world through lenses that were -51D, along with another 5 diopters of astigmatism. But at least she didn’t have to always tell people that she couldn’t see things, so she felt a lot better about her vision.
The option was still out there to have Suzie’s inner lenses removed. But for now I was going to keep that option to myself. I liked having my own personal high myope around. And there was no question any more that my marriage was a sham marriage. I was in this one for life.
Specs4ever Dec 2012
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