My wife and I had lived next door to Dave and Lynn for the past 10 years. They had only one child, a daughter named Kelcie, who was a very good student and an industrious young lady. Even though we didn’t have a big lawn I hated cutting the grass, and when I saw Kelcie cutting the grass for Dave when she was around 12 years old, I hired her to cut my grass as well. Then when Kelcie was 14, she was hired by a nearby Subway, where she quickly learned the ropes. She still cut our grass for a while longer as well as putting in as many hours as she could at the Subway, and when I asked her what she was going to do with all of her money she told me that she wanted to go to either University or a community college after she graduated from high school, so she needed lots of money in order to not have a big debt load after she graduated. Kelcie was a rather attractive mixture between her dad and her mom. She was only around 5’2” or 3, was fairly thin, almost to the point where she could be considered skinny. Lynn was about the same height, but where Lynn had rather voluptuous breasts Kelcie could be considered flat chested. She had a really cute face, and her hair was the same reddish brown as Dave’s was. I suspected that her breasts would still grow a little because she was likely on the cusp of puberty and if they did, she could be a really cute little package once she turned 18. I think Kelcie was pretty close to her 15th birthday when I walked into the Subway and saw her scrunching her eyes up in what I call a myopic squint so that she could recognize the patrons before they reached the order counter where she was working. I didn’t say anything that day, but the next time Kelcie was cutting my grass I mentioned that I had noticed that she might be getting a little nearsighted. She told me that her mom was taking her in for an eye exam later that week, so it was not a big surprise when the next time I saw her, Kelcie was wearing a cute pair of glasses. Her lenses had a bit of cut in to them, so I knew that her eyesight was likely a little worse than some of the other kids in the neighborhood who seemed to barely have any power in their lenses, but I have a hard time guessing the prescription of a pair of glasses. Sure, as the lenses get thicker, I can tell they contain a fair bit of power and I know that flat fronts on the lenses usually indicate a prescription of roughly -10D, and I know that myodiscs generally are used for a prescription of around -20D, but anything else is just a rough guess. I never again saw Kelcie without her glasses on her face. And I was a little surprised when, after she had her first pair for about 3 months or so, she was sporting a new frame. I couldn’t tell if the lenses were stronger, but I suspected they were or there would have been no reason to get new ones. The next new pair showed up about 6 months later, shortly before her 16th birthday, and now it looked as if the lenses had a bit of thickness to them. And I also thought that her breasts had developed a little more. Kelcie took drivers education at school during the year she was 16, and sometime during that year she got another new pair of glasses that were noticeably thicker. Her next increase was around her 17th birthday and now the edges of her lenses showed that they stuck out behind the frame and looked to be twice as thick as the frame was. She had gotten her beginners drivers license, and she was allowed to drive during the day by herself with no passengers. Her job, and her schoolwork were taking a lot of her time so I didn’t see much of Kelcie during her last year of high school, and while I didn’t get a close look at her I could tell that she had gotten another new pair of glasses sometime around Christmas. I was now dealing with the prospect of cutting my own grass, and I searched for and found a young boy who was willing to do the job, so I gladly paid him. Kelcie graduated from High School around the time she turned 18. Dave and Lynn invited us to the Graduation Ceremonies that were held at the end of June and that was the first time I had seen Kelcie up close since the fall. She had gotten new glasses again recently and when I looked closely at her dressed in her graduation gown, I could tell that the fronts of the lenses were dead flat. The lenses didn’t appear to be that thick, so I figured that this time they had paid for the thinner lens option, but the one thing that thinner lenses can’t hide is the optical cut in at the outer edges of the lenses and Kelcie had a pretty good amount of sky showing on each side of her face. Then I looked at her breasts. In that department she was now giving her mother a good run for her money as Kelcie now looked to have every bit as much in the chest department as Lynn did. I couldn’t help but think that as her breasts grew larger her eyes developed the need for more diopters in direct proportion. I knew a little bit about myopia, but what I knew of Kelcie’s case certainly didn’t fit the rules of normal myopic progression. If her first prescription, when she was around 15 was as much as -2D that likely meant that her second prescription 3 months later placed her right around -3.00D. Then 6 months later she had another increase, so she was likely around -4D or -4.50D by her 16th birthday. Now, at age 18 she had to be right around -10D because of the flat fronts, so that meant that in only another 2 years Kelsie had gone up between -5.50 and -6.00D. It is what happened, so since she had twice yearly increases, she must have jumped -1.50D every 6 months. That was quite a lot, but not completely out of the realm of possibilities. She was now going to be attending a community college where she would be studying Architectural Design and her studies would involve a lot of close and finicky work. If she was genetically inclined to be myopic this field of study could really increase her myopia. Neither Dave, nor Lynn were myopic, so I didn’t know if there was any genetic component to Kelcie’s myopia, but something had certainly jump started it. We saw even less of Kelcie while she was at college. She would come home at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter, but she spent most of her time with her parents and her high school friends. I did notice a couple of times that she had different frames for her glasses, but from a distance it is even harder to tell if the lenses are stronger. During Kelcie’s Easter break at her third and final year of college she appeared at our front door with a rather handsome man who she introduced as her fiancée Ben. She gave us an invitation to her graduation, along with a wedding invitation for mid-July. We accepted both invitations and they headed back to Dave and Lynn’s house. Ben wore glasses that had flat fronts, so I knew his prescription was in the -10D range. Kelcie had what looked to be thicker lenses with more cut in, so I was thinking that she was now somewhere between -13D and -15D, but I didn’t dare ask her what her prescription was. I did mention to Kathy, my wife, that it looked like Dave and Lynn would likely have a couple of glasses wearing grandchildren, and she agreed with my assessment of the situation. Kathy and I enjoyed ourselves at Kelcie and Ben’s graduation. We took the two graduates, Dave and Lynn and Ben’s mom and dad out to dinner that night. Now I was really wondering where Ben’s myopia came from, because neither Jack nor Angie wore glasses. And I checked Angie’s eyes to see if I could spot the telltale signs of a contact lens wearer, but it didn’t appear that she wore contacts. I did manage to satisfy my curiosity that evening. I asked Kelcie if she planned to wear contact lenses for her wedding and she told me that she would have liked to, but her eye doctor told her that her eyes were too dry for her to wear contacts successfully. Then I asked Ben the same question, and he replied that since Kelcie couldn’t wear contacts, he just planned to wear glasses as well. Somehow, I managed to bring the conversation around to prescriptions, and Kelcie told us her glasses were -13.50D, but she thought she might need another change shortly. Ben’s glasses were -11D and he did not indicate that his glasses were not still satisfactory. That meant that if Kelcie had somewhere around a -4D or a -4.50D when she was 16 her eyes had only gained another -9D or -9.50D in 5 years. That was a more reasonable progression than it had been when she graduated high school. I didn’t dare ask Ben how his myopia had started and progressed, and I was just happy that I had found out the prescriptions that Ben and Kelcie wore. The wedding was a huge success. Jack and Angie sat with Dave and Lynn and Kathy and me. We got along extremely well, and although Kathy and I were retired and older than the parents of the bride and groom I wouldn’t have minded if they became friends as well. When I danced with the bride, I complimented her on her new glasses, and she admitted that they were now -14.50D. She also told me that her eye doctor could not figure out why she had such bad eyesight, but she could see fairly well with glasses, so that was good. I didn’t think I should mention that with her and Ben both wearing strong glasses the odds were good that any children would also be glasses wearers. I had retired when I was 60. That was the year that Kelcie was 15. She married Ben when she was 21, and now 4 years later they were invited, along with Dave and Lynn and Jack and Angie to my 70th birthday celebration. Dave and Lynn had not said anything about the fact that Kelcie was obviously very pregnant. She was due in 3 weeks, and the pregnancy had obviously affected her myopia as her glasses were quite a bit stronger than they had been a few months ago, when she was still wearing the same -14.50D glasses she had been married in. I didn’t ask what her prescription was now, but if I was a betting man, I would have guessed that her pregnancy had added 2 or maybe even 4 diopters to her already strong prescription. During the conversation that evening I overheard Kelcie telling my wife that her eyes had been stable for 4 years, but in only a couple of months she had added -4D to her prescription and her eye doctor had told her that that sometimes happened during pregnancy. It didn’t take a lot of adding to figure out that Kelcie was now wearing a prescription of -18.50D. I thought she looked darned good wearing her strong glasses, but I prudently didn’t say anything. My curiosity was killing me. I did a bit of online research, and I came to the conclusion that Kelcie had a problem with her female hormones. Her eyesight started to deteriorate when she was 15 years old. While this was a little older than puberty is for many girls this was about the time when Kelcie went from a flat chested young lady to having a rather voluptuous chest size. Apparently, a female hormonal imbalance can both cause, and accelerate myopia in prepubescent girls. Also, it was well documented that many nearsighted pregnant females can experience a minor increase in their myopia during pregnancy, but in Kelcie’s case her increase was a major one. Shannon Lynn was born a few days early, but she was not a premature baby. Kelcie and Ben wanted to try for a boy, and when Shannon was around a year old Kelcie was pregnant again. Kelcie experienced a slight deterioration in her vision when she was around 3 months along, but this only increased her prescription by another -1.50D. The gender reveal party told us that instead of a boy there was going to be a sister for Shannon and Lily was born a healthy girl. Shortly after Lily was born Kelcie had to go for another eye exam. She took Shannon, who by now was almost 2 years old. The eye doctor discovered that not only had Kelcie’s prescription increased to -22D for both eyes, but Shannon was extremely nearsighted and needed a first prescription of around -12D. Lily was about a month old when Kelcie brought her 2 daughters to visit with her mom. Of course, Kathy and I had to go over and see Lynn’s granddaughters. I loved the way Kelcie looked wearing her new -22D myodiscs, and Shannon was the cutest young lady ever wearing her glasses. I kept my thoughts to myself and didn’t express that it was very possible that Lily would follow in her parents and her big sister Shannon’s myopic footsteps. Specs4ever June 2021
https://vision-and-spex.com/my-neighbor-s-daughter-t2530.html