Lisa’s alarm on her phone rings its usual tune, waking Lisa just like any other morning. She stretches her arms to get blood flowing through her system and can’t help noticing that her vision is a little blurrier than usual. Thinking that it must be due to the residue that collected overnight, she blinks her eyes a few times to try and clear it up. After all, they do feel a little dryer than usual. She feels for her glasses on the nightstand next to her bed but they are not there. “That’s strange,” Lisa thinks to herself, as that’s where she normally puts them before she goes to bed. She wonders if she has worn her contacts to sleep in which case they will be in the washroom. However, she can see nothing so that must not have been the case. She gets up on her feet and carefully makes her way to the washroom, arms in front of her so that she doesn’t bump into anything. With her -7 prescription, her vision is quite blurry even though it isn’t impossible to see.
Lisa crouches over the countertop squinting, as she looks for her glasses. Sure enough, they are right where she normally leaves them every morning. She is relieved to be able to see again once she has put them on. Looking in the mirror, she sees that both her eyes are bloodshot. “Oh no!” she cries out aloud, “How am I going to be able to go to school today?” Overhearing her exclaim, Lisa’s mum calls out, “Are you OK, Lisa?” to which Lisa replies, “My eyes are all red and I think I need to go see the eye doctor today.” “Did you sleep in your contacts again?” her mum then asks. That has happened a few times before but she’d never gotten an infection, until now. Lisa hesitantly says, “I don’t think so,” as she checks her contact lens case. Nothing is in there. “That’s bizarre,” she thinks to herself. After all, she is wearing her glasses and can see, so it doesn’t make any sense that she could have gone to sleep with her contacts on. Nevertheless, she checks her eyes by looking closely in the mirror and sure enough it looks like there are contact lenses in her eyes. Apprehensively, she calls the optometrist from her phone.
Fortunately, Lisa’s optometrist Tracy agrees to open a little earlier to see her first thing in the morning due the urgency of the situation. Lisa’s mum drops her off at Tracy’s office but as she isn’t able to take time off work, Lisa will have to take an Uber back home. She says nothing about the fact that she thinks her contacts are still on or that she notices that her distance vision is blurry even with her glasses on, but it is worrying her quite a bit.
“Hi Lisa, good to see you again, though not in the best of circumstances with the issue you’re having,” Tracy greeted Lisa in her usual cheerful self, “Let’s get you settled in the examination room.” As Lisa takes her glasses off, everything becomes blurry and she says, “Tracy, can you check if my contacts are in my eyes because I think I might have slept in them, even though I can’t see without my glasses on. As Tracy examines Lisa’s eyes, she says, “Looks like there are contacts in there alright. Are you able to take them out? Come wash your hands here first.” Lisa is not used to taking her contact lenses off with everything looking blurry but as she pulls Tracy’s magnifying mirror really close to her face, she can see her eyes clearly enough and pops her lenses out quite easily.
Lisa is shocked at how much more blurry everything is as her contacts come off. She holds up her hands in front of her and they are a blur too. Tracy shines some light into her eyes to examine them carefully and then guides her to an imaging machine. “Look into the center of the light”, Tracy says. “Snap, snap, snap” the machine sounds for about 10 seconds or so. “OK, it’s done. You can move your head away now and just relax. I’m going to need a few minutes to study the images in the next room,“ Tracy says to Lisa who then sits suspensefully and blindly in the room with the lights off.
Tracy returns in a couple of minutes, saying, “It’s a good thing you came in immediately Lisa, as there is no permanent damage as far as I can see, but things could have been different if you had waited as you definitely have an eye infection.” She then guides Lisa to the examination chair, positions the phoropter in front of her eyes and starts putting different lenses in it. The typical “which is better, A or B” eye test dance commences and when Tracy finally manages to find the right lenses that Lisa can see well with, she says, “The good news is that your eyesight looks unaffected other than your prescription having gone up a lot. There have been cases where this happens with an eye infection. The bad news is that your new glasses will need to be pretty strong and I’m going to have to ask our lab if they can make it for you within the hour like they normally do.” She then puts some antibiotic eye drops in Lisa’s eyes. “Hopefully this will help,” she says.
As she sits back in the waiting room, Lisa is relieved at what Tracy said but still very concerned as even after putting her glasses back on, her eyesight is pretty much as bad as what they normally are without glasses or contacts. After what seems like an endless wait, which in reality is just about 15 minutes, Tracy finally returns with the good news that they can make the lenses for her new glasses within the next three hours, not the one hour that she hoped for but at least it is going to be the same day. Tracy then asks her assistant Patrick to help Lisa with picking out new frames. Lisa is unable to see clearly enough to tell how she looks in the different frames and so Patrick volunteers to take pictures using her phone so that she can look at them after putting her glasses back on. “Thanks Patrick!” Lisa is grateful for the help and chooses an oblong brown tortoise-shell frame.
Since Lisa has three hours to spare, she decides to go to the cafe around the corner from the optometrist’s, which is a more comfortable place to wait than in the waiting room. It is a challenge getting there though, as she could hardly see with her old glasses on. Fast-forward three hours, she pays for her drink and snack, all the while thinking that the waiter must be wondering why she has been bringing everything like her phone so close to her eyes even with glasses on.
Finding her way back to the optometrist’s, Lisa is glad to put on her new glasses for the first time, and everything becomes clear again. Looking in the mirror, she is aghast at her new lenses which are hideously thick and obscuring her beautiful eyes. They look like Ms. Hart’s ultra-strong glasses that she has been wearing to school because of the issues she’s been having with her contacts. The good news is that the redness has subsided somewhat. Tracy asks her to look around. Other than the fact that everything looks a little smaller and farther away, Lisa’s vision is clear. “Keep applying these drops 4 times a day and if it clears up you can go back to school. I’ll make an appointment for you in two weeks to see if you can be back in contacts,” says Tracy. “Two weeks!” Lisa thinks to herself, as her heart and mind both begin to race as she wonders how she can go to school wearing these glasses. She has not even once worn her old more normal looking glasses. What will her friends think?
Lisa’s alarm on her phone plays its usual tune once more and she jumps out of bed. As she opens her eyes, she sees everything quite clearly, which means that she has slept in her contacts again. It takes a moment for her to realize that it had all been a dream. Her heart rate slows and she begins to breathe a little more easily. She heads to the washroom where her glasses are on the countertop exactly where she left them the morning before. But as she looks up at the mirror and sees that they are red, “Oh no!” she exclaims…