Part 4 Over a month had gone by, and I could no longer ignore Dr. Sadler’s request that I should have my eyes examined. Late that afternoon found me sitting in his office exam chair. Earlier on Gail, one of the opticians had taken me into the pre exam room and had done a visual field test and had used the auto refractor to determine the prescription I needed. She did tell me that my prescription was a little over what was in my current glasses, and I was happy at that because I really liked the power of these glasses. The doctor was very thorough with his examination of my eyes. I had a hard time deciding which lenses were the best, but I managed to get to the point where the letters on the smallest chart were unreadable but clear. However, the next line up was really clear, and Dr. Sadler told me that I could no longer be corrected to 20/20, but I could see the 20/25 line very well. He also told me that most high minus patients could no longer even read the 20/25 line because of the minification factor caused by the strong minus lenses. He had not told me what my new prescription was going to be, but he had entered it into the computer and when I went back to my desk, I accessed my file. I couldn’t believe what he had entered. I now needed a prescription of -18.50D for both eyes, and Dr. Sadler had made a notation that it appeared that I had a case of progressive myopia, which could lead to increased prescriptions which would hopefully stabilize as I aged. I didn’t like the sound of that, but since I had bought the 5 pairs of glasses at the thrift store and had likely used them to increase my prescription, I could not cry about it. After all, if I actually had progressive myopia my prescription might have increased anyway. I had been surprised by Bailey again a couple of days ago when she asked me if she could try my next stronger pair of glasses because the -7.50D ones no longer gave her clear vision – and that had only been a few months after she had started wearing them. As the last patient of the day went into Dr. Sadler’s exam room Gail came to me and told me that she had time to help me select my new glasses. Since I had put most of the frames on the rack, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted, so I showed her the one I liked the best. It had the temples set back a little more so I knew that my thick lenses would fit. She approved of the frame and told me it looked very nice on my face, as I couldn’t even see as far as my face in the mirror. Gail laughed when I told her that and she told me that when I looked at my face in the mirror it was very close to what someone with a -37D prescription would see because looking in a mirror effectively doubled a person’s prescription. I wanted to get the cheapest regular plastic lenses for my new frame, but Gail told me that since Dr. Sadler was paying for my new glasses and since I was the face most customers would see first, he wanted me to have the nicest possible looking glasses that my strong prescription could be made in. As she told me, I didn’t want to scare people away from getting glasses if they also had a strong prescription. My new glasses would also be useful in upselling other people to the more expensive lenses. I ended up ordering those frames with the thinnest possible 1.9 index glass lenses with the edges slightly thinned so my lenses would look nice and thin. But then, using my own money I ordered another frame, also with the temples set back a little and I ordered that pair with 1.56 index regular plastic. When I wrote out the order, I asked for the largest possible visual field that could be done as long as the temples would fold. I wanted to add “make these lenses as thick as possible”, but I knew that would cause unwanted comments. My glasses with the regular lenses arrived first, and for a few days I wore them around the office. I had taken my -17.50D thrift store glasses, removed the lenses and had searched until I found a frame that I could put the lenses into. It was a nice modern frame, and I felt that Bailey would be able to wear them in the future. And since I also looked after the old eyeglasses donation box, I started checking some of the old glasses, but there were no donations in the range Bailey might need next. One day a young lady who was Bailey’s age came in for an eye exam. When she left her new prescription had jumped a lot and it now needed to be -13.00D. When she came in to pick her new glasses up, she had a case containing an old pair of glasses. Her present glasses were -10.50D but according to her file her previous prescription had been -9.00D. She wanted to put them in the box, so I told her I would do it for her. As soon as I had a chance I checked the prescription, and the glasses she was donating were her -9.00D ones. I took them home with me that night, planning to give them to Bailey as soon as she started complaining about her eyes getting worse again. I wasn’t going to tell her about the glasses I had found in the donation box for her, but she saw me take them out of my bag and asked me about them so I told her that I anticipated that they might become her next pair when she felt she needed them. I had gotten a cell phone and I had given Ben my number. He would text me sometimes and I would text him back, but every once in a while, he would call me, and I really loved hearing his voice. He was being admitted to the bar in the spring so that meant I needed to get through the winter before we could go out together, but I hadn’t been looking for, nor had I found another guy I liked as well as Ben. I did get to see him once for lunch as he made an appointment with Dr. Sadler to have his eyes tested and after his eye exam, he took me out to lunch. He ordered new contact lenses as well as new glasses and now I knew his prescription. His contacts were -16.50 and his glasses were around -20D with a little bit of astigmatism. I saw Ben again the day he came to pick up his new glasses, but we didn’t have a chance for another lunch date. Both Gail and Heather thought my boyfriend was a hunk and I didn’t bother telling them that unfortunately Ben was not really my boyfriend even though I wished he was. By Christmas time I started to notice that Bailey was squinting a lot. She had started wearing my old -6.00D glasses before I turned 18 in early May, and shortly after she went back to school in September, she had asked me if she could try my next pair. She turned 15 in November and now, just 3 months after wearing the -7.50D glasses Bailey seemed to need even stronger glasses. I didn’t know if I should suggest that she should come in for an eye exam, but I knew that Mildred would rather not have the cost of an eye exam and new glasses come out of her household budget. I had other things to worry about in January. Mildred had her 76th birthday. Bailey and I had celebrated it with her, but it seemed to me that Mildred was getting more forgetful than she ever had been. I managed to get her to her doctor one day and her doctor told me that Mildred had a bit of dementia, but he didn’t think it was anything to worry about and he put her on medication which was supposed to help. It did help and after a couple of weeks on the medication Mildred seemed much better. I had worried a little that Bailey and I might be out on the street if Mildred had to go to a home. I guess while I was worrying about Mildred, I really hadn’t noticed that Bailey had started wearing the old -9.00D glasses that I had gotten from the donation box at work. When I did notice I didn’t say anything to Bailey as I had placed all the old glasses in a top drawer of my bureau and had shown Bailey where they were. I was just glad that she had taken it upon herself to try the next stronger pair. But now I only had the silver wire rimmed antique glasses that Ben’s mom had thought were -10.50D. Yes, I also had the last pair from Ben’s nana that were-17.50D that I had put the lenses into a new frame, but the drop temple glasses along with the next 2 pairs from the thrift store were so old fashioned and fragile I was sure that they would be no good for Bailey. I was taking courses online to become a licensed optician. With the money I had coming in from my mom’s insurance along with the money I was earning by working for Dr. Sadler I had purchased a laptop computer and had arranged for internet service. Bailey wanted a cell phone, and while I really didn’t want any more payments, I did get her one and added her to my phone and data plan. Bailey and I had become sisters – not by blood, but I had learned that you don’t have to be blood to love someone. One of the things that I was supposed to learn in the optician’s course was how to resize a pair of lenses from a customer’s broken frames into a new frame. Dr. Sadler had what they called a hand edger in the back room, and while Gail and Heather admitted that they had learned how to do that at school they had never actually used the edger. It just sat on the bench taking up room. Using the instructions, I had gotten during the zoom schooling I marked the lenses, and accidently broke the old drop temple frame while trying to pop the lenses out. I took the lenses into the office and looked over all the frames on the rack. I knew my pd was 63, and I knew that Bailey had the same pd. I had checked the pd in the silver frames, and the pd of Ben’s nana was 64, which I had worn in those 5 pairs of glasses without a problem, so I wasn’t worried about that. I did mark 63 as the pd on the demonstration lenses that come with all new frames, and I had marked the pd on the loose lenses so when I took the demo lenses and placed them on the loose lenses, I was able to mark the loose lenses with the correct pd. I was rather scared to trim the loose lenses down, but I managed to rough size them and then I managed to trim them to fit using the groove in the wheel. I knew I was close when I could fit the trimmed down rear part of the loose lenses into the frame, although I was afraid to try to pop them in over the bevel without heating the frame in the hot sand. I had been taking video of my process to send to my instructor. But I had nothing to send until I could show him the lenses in the frame, so I heated the right lens and gently pressed the lens into place. Then I did the same thing with the left lens, and I finished the video with the completed glasses. I was able to use the lensometer and found out the lenses were both -12D. Now I knew I had jumped from -7.50D to -10.50D. It was not surprising that I had a harder time getting used to the old silver wire frame cats eye framed glasses than I had going up to the old drop temple ones. The -12D lenses were now in their new frame and were ready for Bailey if she ever wanted – or needed, to wear them. Other than offering her my old stronger glasses I had never forced Bailey to wear the glasses and I was glad that she had chosen for herself. I had never even asked Bailey if she was like me and liked the thicker glasses, and if that was the reason for her wanting to have stronger glasses. I could have booked an eye exam for Bailey at any time before she turned 16 and Children’s aid would have paid, but she seemed very comfortable with wearing my old glasses. I had told her that she could wear the old silver framed cat eye ones any time she felt she needed an increase, which she did soon after that. I showed her the new frames I had put the old -12D lenses into. She liked the new frame a lot, and I wondered if she would try to wear the silver frames for a shorter period of time just so she could wear them. The lenses did look quite thick though. The next 2 pairs of glasses were even thicker, and I decided I would take them to work with me and see what the prescriptions were in them. I discovered that the third pair, which I had actually liked to wear once I had adjusted them to fit me had a prescription of -14.50D, and the fourth pair was a -16.00D prescription. No wonder I had found it a little harder to wear the silver framed glasses. I had jumped from -7.50D glasses up to -10.50D and all the rest of the glasses had only been a -1.50D increase. Bailey had the pair of-9.00D glasses that she had worn first to help her with the transition, and now that she had been wearing the silver framed -10.50D glasses for a while she seemed very comfortable with them. I had been working at the optical store for more than 2 years now, and one morning Dr. Sadler suggested that I should book myself an appointment as soon as it looked like he had free time. I didn’t feel like I needed new glasses, but I knew it wasn’t a good idea to argue with the person who signs your paycheck, so I penciled myself into an open slot a couple of weeks away. I always wore my 1.9 hi index glasses all day at work, but they felt quite heavy on my face, even though the lenses looked a lot nicer than my other glasses. I had chosen a little smaller eye size for the 1.56 index plastic lenses, but even so, the lab had placed about a third of my prescription into the front of the lens. This meant that the front of my lenses were significantly dished in, something I knew was called a biconcave lens. With the biconcave lenses and the smaller frame my lenses looked to be about ¾” thick. Even so, these glasses felt a little lighter than my good glasses and I had been wearing the thicker glasses to and from work, as well as around the house whenever I wasn’t working. Ben had gotten a job at a different law firm after he finished his articling and as soon as he was free of the regulations of the investment firm, we had been spending a lot of time together. Although he was still wearing his contact lenses most of the time, he never seemed to mind being seen in the company of a girl who wore very thick glasses, and when I asked him if I should bring my nicer looking glasses home with me so I could wear them when we were out, he told me he didn’t care what I wore for glasses because he liked me just as well wearing either pair. I hadn’t thought that my eyes needed any more than the -17.50D prescription that was in my previous glasses, but Dr. Sadler had prescribed me the -18.50D glasses I had worn for over 2 years now. I still thought that prescription was great, but I was a little worried about how much of an increase he would prescribe this time. I needn’t have worried, because it turned out that he only increased my prescription slightly. However, he did tell me that I should order 2 pairs in my new prescription and that I could get one pair with the 1.9 index glass and the other pair with 1.74 hi index plastic. He also asked me if I could leave my old regular plastic glasses at the store to show people how much difference the higher indexes made in the thickness of a person’s glasses. Since he was paying for both my new pairs, I agreed to do that. Now my new glasses were going to be -19.00D Dr. Sadler felt that my myopic progression had likely stopped. I hoped that was true, because over the past couple of years of working for him I had seen a couple of customers who needed prescriptions in the mid to high -20’s and my good glasses looked far better with the hi index lenses than their glasses did.
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