This story is fiction and is my first attempt writing one of these I was also high when I wrote it so apologies if people dont like it.
When I was 17 my life changed forever. At the start of the grade 9 midyear break we got the terrible and tragic news that my cousin Samantha had died from a heart condition she had developed over the last 3 years and as a result my grandma with severe dementia now had no one to care for her until my uncle got back from his Overseas deployment. Originally Samantha’s mother had been looking after grandma, but she had ended up in prison last year since she had been involved in a money laundering scheme and stealing social security money. Since it was the summer holidays mum volunteered me to go to look after grandma for a few weeks and despite not wanting to I agreed since grandma’s dementia was now extremely bad, and I felt quite bad for her being stuck alone. Another dilemma was we had yet to break the news about Samantha’s death to grandma however we wanted to have my uncle back first so he could do it. After I packed my things, mum took me to the train station where I boarded the 3-hour ride. Thankfully grandma was only 10 minutes’ walk from the train station so it wouldn’t be too bad when got there I arrived at the station at around 4pm and after putting grandma’s address into the phone I made my way to her house. When I arrived my I found a note on the door saying. That she had gone out with her aged care nurse and that she would be back in an hour. Since mum had given me, a key in case this happened I was able to let myself in. When I went in, I put my bag down and found another note on the dining table. Hi Samantha, can you please do X Y and Z When I saw this, I felt really sad. Even before grandma went completely senile, she had often mixed me and Samantha up since we looked so alike. The only thing Samantha had to distinguish herself from me really Was her glasses and the fact she was 2 years older. Suddenly I looked at the fridge and saw a picture of us both a couple of years ago. We honestly looked like a pair of sisters and despite the fact we had argued the last time we saw each other I began to realise how much I missed her. Since Samantha wasn’t here to do it, I went and did the things on grandma’s list and then with nothing to do went upstairs and decided to go see Samantha’s old room. When I went in, I found it had been slightly cleared but most of her personal effects and clothes were still around next to her bed I noticed the familiar glasses that she always wore How Samantha had confidently worn those thick magnifying chunks her whole life had been a mystery to me. She had always worn glasses her whole life since she had extremely bad eyesight and seeing those massive thick chunks of glass brought back more memories of her and me. As that happened, I heard a van pull up and grandma was dropped off by her career. I headed downstairs to go greet her. When I went down, she didn’t seem to notice that idd arrived and she simply asked how I was today. As I was about to respond her dementia seemed to kick in fully and suddenly blurted out Samantha where are your glasses girl. Um nan it’s me Cassandra. Since when did you get contacts Samantha? Fortunately, idd come prepared for this as mum had told me before I left to just play along with what she said and wanted and to do my best to pretend to be my cousin but we were worried that grandma would deteriorate without the right support and that she would be told when my uncle got back he could sort it all put since he was the only one who seemed to be able to keep her grounded in reality. I then just said idd only just gotten dressed and I then went upstairs pretending to be half blind and went up to Samantha’s room to figure out what to do. I got up there and closed the door. I figured I could maybe use some of Samantha’s old clothes for a whole but the problem I had was I had perfect vision. Samantha always had her glasses glued to her face every moment. Idd never tried her glasses before but needing to look like her I decided to see if I could wear them also for some reason, they also stared at me like they wanted almost for me to put them on but alas when I put them on, I couldn’t see anything past a few inches and my depth perception was way of combined with the fact the few blobs I could see seemed huge. This was also slightly more amplified if I looked out the lower part of the glasses. but I couldn’t see regardless. I turned my head ever so slightly and felt sick from the motion whenever I moved my head. On the bright side they seemed to sit tightly on my head, but I began to feel the weight of them, and I now realised what a pain they must have been for Samantha to be stuck with every second. I took them back off and examined them Closely. the frame was a large wide purple and black ray ban frame, but the lenses were super thick and bulged put of both sides of the frame and were about 3/4 inch thick in some sections and IDD never seen anyone else with glasses even close to this and to make it worse the glasses had a noticeable line In them that separated the bottom part of the lens. Grandma’s glasses also had the same line in them, and IDD noticed this with old people’s glasses before. I then put them back on and moved them down my nose so that I could look over the top if need be but decided that I had keep them on in front of Grandma as a means to keep up the ruse I decided I would go watch TV with her for a while until she went to bed later so I then stumbled my way back down to the living room and after almost falling down the stairs I got to the safety of the couch. I sat down and pretended to watch the TV with her, but I was still struggling to see anything with these things on. I got my phone out and decided to try my best to use it. At first it was a pain because I had to hold it super close to my face and at a certain angle since the lower part was even harder to see out of. After I messaged my various friends and went through my social feeds, I suddenly wandered what I looked like in these glasses anyway. I opened the camera and wanted to yell put holy crap. My eyes were massive behind these lenses and the thick bulging grandpa glasses almost seemed kind of funny. I took a couple of photos for a laugh but afterwards just went back to using my social. After a few minutes my arms got tired, and I moved them further down, but I was able to still see my phone I sat there for the next several hours on my phone occasionally chatting with grandma about random things. Eventually she fell asleep in her chair, and I then decided I needed to take a shower and go to bed since I was tired. When I got up the distortion and depth perception made me feel sick again, but I seemed to be able to see a little bit more in front of me and I figured I might as well take my bag up to Samantha’s old room. I peered over the glasses to find my bag and then went upstairs. I went to go have a bath before bed since grans shower wasn’t working. When I got to the bathroom, I saw myself in the mirror again. Holy shit 3 weeks of wearing these things. Although I now noticed something else. With the fact my hair was a slightly different colour and some subtle facial differences Literally thought Samantha was staring back at me. I then suddenly felt sick but not wanting grandma to lose it I figured idd try make it work besides I read that can’t get bad vision from wearing someone else’s glasses. I took them off and ran my bath. As I sat in there, I decided to read a magazine, but I suddenly found that the print seemed smaller than usual for some reason. I wasn’t much of a reader anyway since i always got eye strain and migraines if I read a lot. recently it had become more of an issue, and I was unable to figure out why. Since the glasses made everything bigger, I put them back on and suddenly everything was big and easy to see. After a while reading cooking magazines the bath began to get cold, I got out and went back to the room after drying myself up by now I was quite tired and went to bed. The next morning and for the rest of that week it turned out grandma’s helper was sorting out her meals and things and therefore I didn’t have to cook or do anything visually demanding. I got up and got dressed I went down the hall but suddenly I remembered that I was missing something. I went back in the room and saw the chunks of glass staring at me. I put them on my head and went downstairs. When I got to the bottom, I slipped them over my eyes and the world became a blur again. Thankfully idd already spotted grandma at the table so I went and had breakfast with her after we ate and chatted for a bit, she simply went back to the living room to watch TV like she does 90 percent of the day. I then remembered I had these few school assignments for the holidays and figured I might as well deal with them now. I set up my laptop and got to work. Normally I wasn’t a very good at studying but strangely today It seemed just quicker and less tiring also for some reason my eyes didn’t start hurting like they often did during long periods of work which was odd because I was worried the glasses would make it harder but even though my distance vision was blurry, I didn’t feel any strain to see. By the late afternoon idd finished all my work and I then got up to get some food. After doing that I went in to see grandma and watch TV with her again. I then repeated what I did the night before until it was time to go to bed. The next morning gran had a mourning trip out, so I had the house to myself. I got up and got some snacks and decided I was just going to sit and watch Netflix. I got my laptop and set up. After half an hour though I seemed to get this pain in my eyes and for some reason my neck also hurt. I decided to get up and I took some aspirin, but it didn’t help much. I then lay down but a couple of hours later gran was dropped back off. I then put Samantha’s glasses on and went down to help her out. Since she hadn’t had lunch, I offered to make her some and I managed to cook up some fish and fries for us. We sat down and had lunch and then I went to go back up to watch my laptop again. I put Netflix back on during this time I didn’t get any more headaches and I binge watched through until I had to go heat up some more food for dinner. After serving grandma up I went back to my room and continued to binge watch. Netflix. When I was watching Netflix this time, I didn’t get any issues and almost felt like it looked better than normal. When it was 2 in the morning, I went to go have a quick bath. When I got in I somehow managed to forget I was wearing my glasses and when I went to go wash my hair, I suddenly got this foggy droplet view. Realising I still had them on I took them off. After that I suddenly noticed that my vision was slightly blurry and double. But I didn’t think much of it. I quickly finished up in the bath. When I dried myself off, I went to look at myself in the mirror. I suddenly noticed dent marks in my nose that were. Ugg why can’t I just break it to gran already. I got my things and went back to my room. I went on my phone for a while but found I had to hold it far away from me and that the font was now small and hard to read liken the magazine had been. I then got the sudden urge to put the glasses on again and the problem was solved. After a couple of hours, I went to sleep. The next morning, I woke up and decided I was going to go through some of Samantha’s cloths to see what I wanted to keep and other things to take to charity. I put on the glasses and went to get some breakfast. After breakfast I began to go through the cupboard in the room. Over the next several hours I went through various clothes and other items. While I was sorting the clothes, I found a leather glasses case. When I opened it up, I expected to find more glasses but ended up finding a massive stash of weed and magic mushrooms when I found that it brought back memories. The reason we had our argument a few mounts ago was because she thought idd stole her big stash last holiday but lol here it was. I kept going through everything and found an album of photos. While going through Them I began to cry and break down. Suddenly I decided to roll up a big, massive j and then after smoking it opened the bag of shrooms Idd never actually done mushrooms before. Just before I got ready to eat them and down it with some cola I went to the bathroom. At this point I was really teared up. Honestly, I was hating having to pretend to be my dead cousin to my gran and I was desperate to make the 2 weeks go faster and get this done. I took the glasses of and wiped my eyes. I looked at myself in the mirror although due to what comes next this was the last time, I would look at myself this way in the mirror. Part 2
I slipped the glasses back on and went back to the room. After I ate the mushrooms. For the first 20 minutes I felt nothing but suddenly I began seeing things and tripping out hard. I don’t remember much of this and my memory of this day but basically today Samantha’s glasses became well my glasses. During this trip I found I could see perfectly with her glasses on and almost felt like they weren’t there and just a part of me since the weight also seemed to no longer bother me. Later that, I remember watching the TV with nan and having no issues seeing it but after a while I went to bed. That night I had a strange dream where I was talking with my cousin in the dream, she took her glasses of and handed them to me and said that I would be able to keep my grandma happy next morning I woke up still wearing my Glasses. After making grandma some breakfast I remembered the pile of clothes to take to charity. Since there was a bin near the train station, I decided to simply haul them down. I put my clothes on and went out to the bin. On the way my vision felt normal, and all distances were clear. Also, I no longer seemed to get distortion issues. During the walk there I suddenly felt like some uncomfortable burden had been lifted from me. It didn’t matter to me that I was wearing the world’s thickest glasses. All that mattered was something felt lifted. Over the next 2 weeks I ended up somehow not taking my glasses of at all quite literally. Each night I fell asleep wearing them and woke up the next day with them still on. It might be that I was getting stoned and passing out with them on. Another thing that also made this possible was a not so good thing. The hot water system broke down that day my uncle had agreed to fix it when he got back but until then we had to heat up a water bucket and wet towel. Most of the 2 weeks I spent either watching TV with my gran or Netflix and passed quite quickly. The day my uncle was due back I got my bag packed and got ready to depart. I said goodbye to gran. I then left just before my uncle got home. I would have stayed but he felt it was better if he was there with just him and gran. I got to the train station and waited for my train. When I was there, I sparked up my last joint from the stash and while I was getting stoned waiting for the train. I began to realise that something was now different about me. Just as I finished up smoking the train arrived and I hoped on 5 minutes later I got a call, and this is where reality kicked back in. Hi Cass, did you make the train. Um yea. Ok I’ll be at the station in 3 hours hope gran wasn’t too hard to deal with. I then replied oh she just thought I was Samantha the whole time. Suddenly I saw my reflection in the mirror and realised I still had the glasses with me. I said bye to mum. Suddenly I felt stupid looking at myself with these thick ass glasses on i had left grans, so I didn’t need them anymore now and could find a charity bin but oh boy. When I literally took them off for the first time in 2 weeks as I had slept and bathed with them, and they had literality been on me 24/7 I would find myself in the state I now find myself in when I wake up in the mourning every day. Everything was a complete blur. I could literally make out nothing but blobs near and far and to make it worse my eyes felt like they would drift outwards and the few blobs I could see seemed to duplicate. I rubbed my eyes, but nothing changed. I fumbled for my phone but when I picked it up it was nothing but 2 blurry rectangles with a bit of light. I tried focusing but it made no difference. I then began to freak out. Thankfully I was in a cabin alone. For the next 2 hours I tried to see anything without my glasses. But nothing improved and I got nothing but eye strain and a massive headache. How is this happening. I could see fine 3 weeks ago and now I’m literally blind. Suddenly I freaked out that I had messed up my eyes. And began to break down. I wanted to go to the doctor or something, but I didn’t have any options except call an ambulance. I balled up and freaked out for 20 minutes until I heard an announcement that my stop was in 15 minutes. I then went to put my glasses back on, but I had forgotten where they were, and I began to fumble around for them. After 2 minutes I felt them and put them back on. Everything came back into focus and my eye strain quicky went away. I had no idea what was going on. Idd always been told that you couldn’t mess up your eyes through wearing other people’s glasses. But now after 3 weeks of wearing these glasses my eyes were sure messed up. I arrived at the platform. When I got off the train, I saw mum and went to go up to her. When she saw me, she ironically said Samantha in a shocked voice like she had just seen a ghost, but I then replied to Um mum it’s me. Omg Cass it’s you. Hey why are you wearing those horrid glasses aren’t those Samantha’s. Um yea they are I wore them as part of the whole keeping grandma in the dark thing. Well, you Don’t need them anymore just take them off and we can drop them in a bin or charity shop. Uhh mum one slight problem with that I literally now need them to see. What do you mean! I’m amazed you or anyone can see anything though them your cousin had extreme vision problems since birth. Yea but I’m literally unable to see now without them as in i can only see a massive blur. Stop talking rubbish Cass. Now take them off. I took them off and gave them to her not wanting to upset her. Now let’s go to the car. I followed the blob of my mum but after 20 meters I fell over and couldn’t tell my surroundings at this point I was about to start crying suddenly mum must have seen me squinting insanely because she came back over and passed the glasses to my hand. I put them back on and we quickly made our way to the car. When I got in, I began to break down. My mum was baffled how I could go from perfect vision to this in 3 weeks and asked me constantly weather this was some bizarre prank but after i confirmed several times it wasn’t. She then pulled over and rang a local optician store. she luckily managed to get me an appointment in an hour since they had not had to many bookings. on the way She asked me exactly what happened, I explained what seemed to happen and how Idd worn the glasses constantly for 3 weeks since i quickly found i could see with them and it was easier to keep them on to deal with grandma. I then told her that I could see perfect with the glasses on now and my vision felt normal if not slightly better than before. She drove us to the eye doctor. When we arrived, we were sat in a waiting area when i was there i noticed most of the other people in the waiting area had glasses but mine seemed to be stronger than any of theirs furthermore, I noticed most of them made their eyes smaller while mine magnified everything and made my eyes massive. When it came my turn to be examined, I explained what was going on, but the doctors and receptionist seemed baffled because once she measured my glasses, she said it would be a literal miracle to have gone without glasses until now and that my prescription was very high. I told them I was as baffled as them and weather they believed me or not they decided to run a full exam and at the end I was told that my current glasses seem to be correct. Mum then said how can my daughter wear these things. The optician said they could make me a thinner pair with hi index lenses, but the difference would be minimal due to the prism correction and if I chose a smaller frame idd have to deal with a more limited peripheral. Was also told I could try these things called lenticulars that I was told were super thin. But most patients hated them for again extreme loss of peripheral since I could only look through the very centre of the lens although I was told they would be quite light and easy to wear if I chose them. Suddenly I asked. what about contacts? Due to the prism correction and astigmatism contacts are not viable. At your level of hyperopia and convergence deficiency you should honestly see a specialist since your prescription is higher than what we normally deal with. Mum then asked them to check her health insurance policy and surprisingly it covered optical specialists. The optician gave us a referral to one 2 hours away. When we called, we got lucky, and we were told they could see me tomorrow since someone had just cancelled before we rang. We then left the opticians with more questions than answers though. On the way home I began to wander what was going to come of this idd been given a piece of paper which was what the optician had measured my glasses as. LEFT +12.25 CYL 2.50 Ax 90 Bo 5 Add +1.75 RIGHT +12.00 CYL 2.50 Ax 90 Bo 5 Add +1.75 I looked up farsightedness perceptions and learned that +6 was considered high level and I was at plus +12 also I was 17 and already had a so reading add which Normally is meant to be for 40 years and over. I also had a considerable astigmatism and convergence deficiency compared to standard levels as well How the fuck could I have all this and not know until now? When we got home mum assured me, we would get to the bottom of this and hopefully I wouldn’t need these glasses for much longer. I went up to my room to unpack. Several of my friends seemed to want to see me but suddenly I got self-conscious no one had ever seen me with glasses before let alone these. I then began to think about school. I wasn’t a cheerleader or anyone special beforehand, but these glasses were not exactly fashionable. Well, they would be since the frame itself seemed quite nice but the thick ¾ Inch bug eyes cancel that out Fuck the only person who would have been able to relate died 4 weeks ago. I spent the night looking up various things to try make sense of what had happened but after a while I got tired. Also, I needed a shower. When I went to go shower, I took the glasses off and put them on the sink side when I stumbled back to the shower, I struggled to find things. When I was done, I fell over on the way back to the sink. I managed to get over to it and put the glasses back on. I then went to go to bed and then again removed my glasses before I went to sleep. The next morning would be the first of many. I had a dream that night that all this was just a dream, and everything went back to normal but alas I woke up the next morning. I rubbed my eyes, but the same blur as yesterday was still there. I needed to go to the bathroom, but I first had to fumble around for my glasses again. It now began to dawn on me that I was literally 100 percent dependent on these things. After I got up, I got in the car and went for the trip to the specialist. When we went in, we explained the whole situation to the specialist, but he was just as baffled as the other doctor had been. After running several hours of tests and constantly asking if these really were my first glasses. He announced his verdict. This is literally a 1 in a trillion chance. You’re literally a truly interesting case you said you had headaches and migraines before you got glasses the glasses which meant you were latent hyperopic but to this level is unheard of. I’ve seen people your age start at +6 once or twice but +12? normally people with that prescription level get glasses as baby’s or occasionally some people lose accommodation due to other factors and it takes them several years to reach it but you are literally the first patient, I’ve delt with who isn’t in diapers starting with this perception level also the prism and astigmatism make this even more odd especially given your lack of a particularly dominant eye. Also, you said these were your cousins’ glasses? yes. well, this is truly a work of God for lack of better terms. So, what can we do for her mum asked. Well, I currently don’t see any viable option than she continues wearing her glasses. Contacts are not practical since they won’t correct your double vision and surgery is not viable Since you’re still growing but with your prescription its unlikely to be doable with current lens implant tech and even if it worked you would still probably need glasses. You seem to be at your fully measurable prescription so it’s unlikely your vision will get worse though except maybe a stronger reading add at 40 but there is a slim chance it will improve a little bit but honestly expect to need glasses for the rest of your life. After that he said that he could try some other glasses to reduce the thickness and suggested I give a bunch of different things a go to see what worked best for me. Over the next hour I picked out 4 new pairs of glasses. One was a pair called progressives which were like mine with no line and would be slightly thinner. For these I chose a frame almost identical to my current ones except it was plain black I also got a pair in high index single vision with a slightly smaller round frame but since my head was somewhat wide my frames ended up needing to be a certain size due to my head and the small frames wouldn’t fit. I also got a pair of lenticulars as well in the same round black frame. I also got a pair in low index single vision in an oversized large frame since it was only 10 dollars extra with our insurance and I figure since I’m going to be stuck with thick glasses I may as well get a pair of even thicker glasses as I learned that the larger the frame the thicker the lens. When we left, I was told to come back in a week which was the day before school. When I got home, I went and looked at myself in the mirror and it finally sunk in that this was me now. I began to cry myself to sleep and after a while I put my glasses on my bedside table and passed out realising, I would be stuck like this forever. that night I had a dream again like before and I remember my cousin simply saying that in 10 years I would learn why this happened.
Epilogue.
Over the next few days, I was really withdrawn but I eventually summoned up the strength to tell a couple of my close friends what happened and reluctantly met up with my 2 besties. When they came over, they were stunned how bad my eyes were but strangely after 10 minutes and them trying on my glasses the conversation moved on and I and they gradually accepted my new look. The day before school I got my new pairs. I tried all of them on at the opticians. And later at home to find out which ones I liked the lenticulars I straight away hated and they literally became an emergency bathroom pair the other round frame however was slightly lighter and the lenses were noticeably thinner however I didn’t get quite as good vision as my normal pair. I ended up using this pair for pe although I wasn’t much of an athlete anyway. The progressives were slightly thinner than my current ones, but I found it awkward finding the right spot to look through and I never really got used to them although I did wear them sometimes for things such as prom. The oversized frames were also not practical since the lenses were even thicker than my current ones and they struggled to stay on my head although I did wear them to school once a couple of years later as a part of a costume. One thing I struggled to learn how to do again however was makeup but after lots of trial and error I managed with a technique of holding my glasses in front of my face while doing it and gradually got used to it When I went back to school with my new look, I came up with a story of me getting this massive infection and that they had to do surgery on my eyes but as a result I now need strong glasses. Most people bought it, and it was an easier story to tell than using my dead cousins’ glasses. after a couple of weeks, no body commented on my glasses anymore although i was officially the girl with the strongest glasses in my school. as I finished of the rest of school. surprisingly I found my grades went up heaps and I never got migraines or eye strain again and as well and I graduated with a good exam level but didn’t go to college for assorted reasons. Moving on to other things In regard to grandma after my uncle got back, he had tried to explain to grandma the situation, but her dementia was too far gone and even after attending her own granddaughter’s funeral was still convinced, I was her and she stayed this way until she passed away 5 years later. after the funeral I learned that Samantha had kept a small will and when I saw my inheritance, I began to wander weather she had somehow planed all this. The only thing she left me was literally her pair of glasses and She didn’t leave any explanation why and I sometimes I wondered if she cursed them or something or if it was part of something bigger, I eventually got used to my magnified eyes and thick glasses and accepted that they were now part of me and every time I saw myself I would always be looking through my glasses since I couldn’t see the mirror without them anymore. over the next few years, I tried a few more specialists for answers but each one gave me the same answers as the other but on the bright side my perception never changed. I also managed to pass the driving test as well despite fears I would fail the vison test but I found that if I wore my first pair of glasses I could actually see the 40/20 mark and my corrected vision was declared perfect Fast forward 10 years I graduated high school and had found a job where I met my husband after we were together for a while, he confessed he liked me because of my large green eyes and glasses and for some reason this made me fall in love with him since he seemed to accept me and we got married. as of 2 mounts ago I also discovered I’m pregnant. I hope my baby doesn’t need to wear glasses like mummy but only the future will tell. Maybe this had been Samantha’s plan all along and she had somehow made this all happen, but I never found out anymore.
The end.
https://vision-and-spex.com/i-went-blind-in-3-weeks-t2482.html