When I was in kindergarten there was a girl in my class who wore glasses. Her frames appeared to be almost too small for her face, but even with the small frames her lenses looked to be really thick. I still remember staring at her in class, wondering what was wrong with her eyes that made it necessary for her to need to wear such thick glasses. And even with her thick glasses on Meghan was not able to see things off in the distance very well. She was able to explain to me that the lenses in her glasses made things far away very tiny and that was why she couldn’t see them until she got up closer. Meghan was in my class until we went on to junior high in grade 7, and during the years we were in the same classroom I became quite friendly with her. She was the one who made me curious to learn about myopia and myopic progression. In grade 3 a couple of other girls got their first glasses and although I knew they were also myopic their glasses were much thinner and more normal looking than Meghan’s were. I sort of liked the appearance of Meghan’s glasses, but I certainly would not have wanted to wear them. Meghan showed me one day how close she had to get to something in order to see it without her glasses and although I would not have minded wearing glasses I knew that I didn’t want to be as helpless as Meghan was without hers.
Once Meghan was no longer in the same class as I was, we gradually drifted apart. Meghan was pretty self-conscious about her thick glasses and she really didn’t want to call any attention to herself. For the last 4 years I had sat next to her and had passed the notes I took off the chalkboard to her so she could copy them if she needed to and I sometimes wondered who was helping her out now. Other than that, Meghan never crossed my mind and I seldom even noticed her around the school because she had gotten contact lenses and she now looked like a different person and blended in with the girls that didn’t wear glasses.
When I was in grade 9 I began to really notice girls. There was one girl in grade 7 that caught my eye, possibly because she wore glasses and I now was aware of the fact that I liked the appearance of a girl wearing glasses. Her name was Keegan and her glasses were much thinner and more normal looking than my old friend Meghan’s had been. Actually, they were pretty similar to the glasses that most of the other girls her age were wearing. I managed to go to some of the school dances that year, and I was able to dance with Keegan a lot of the time. At the time I wouldn’t say we were dating, or anything, but I am pretty sure she liked me as much as I liked her. The following 2 years, although we were in different schools, I did date Keegan enough that I could be considered her steady boyfriend. By the time I was in grade 12 Keegan was in grade 10 at the same school and we were definitely a couple. Keegan also got contact lenses while she was in grade 10 and since she was very attractive wearing glasses, she was extremely pretty without them. Although I liked Keegan wearing glasses I really didn’t care if she wore glasses or contacts as it was a non-issue for me.
Usually a high school romance ends when one, or both parties head off to different schools to further their education. In our case we both stayed in the city and attended local colleges so there was no need to break up with each other. I took a business course, and by the time I finished my 3 years Keegan was well into her first year of nursing. We had been together now for 5 years, and as far as I was concerned Keegan was the girl for me. She was attractive, and she had a great figure. I knew she wore glasses, but she had not worn her glasses when we had been together ever since she got her contact lenses. I didn’t care if she wore glasses or not, but she seemed to feel that she looked more attractive wearing contacts. I couldn’t weigh in on that, because I had not seen her wearing glasses since we started dating back when she was in grade 7.
I had been working for a manufacturing company that had been around forever and I felt that I was doing well enough that Keegan and I could get married. But she wanted to wait until after she graduated, and I went along with her wishes. Once in a while Keegan would stay overnight at the apartment I had rented and after we had made love she would often shower and then take her contact lenses out for the night. Sometimes we would make love again the following morning an after another shower she would put her contacts in and begin her day. This was an expected procedure and was quite normal. One time she mentioned that she was really blind without her contacts and I felt like telling her that she was not nearly as blind as a girl I was in kindergarten to grade 6 with, but I kept my mouth shut.
During the year Keegan was going to graduate we set a wedding date. Keegan and her mom did most of the grunt work and finally the big day arrived. Her bridesmaids were all friends of Keegan’s but when I met her maid of honor I was really surprised. Her maid of honor was her cousin Meghan and it took me a few minutes to get my head around the fact that her cousin Meghan was the same girl I had been friends with back in grade school. Meghan still wore contact lenses and although she was just a little bit shorter than Keegan she was just as attractive. The reason I had never met her when I was going with Keegan was because she had gone off to university in another city, had met her husband and after getting married they had lived in that city. And the flower girl was Meghan and Terry’s 4-year-old daughter, a real cutie who wore glasses that looked to be a little stronger than the average 4 year old would normally wear. But they looked nowhere near as strong as the glasses her mom had worn back in kindergarten.
Meghan and Keegan’s mothers were sisters and were both very attractive looking ladies. Meghan’s father wore glasses, and his glasses looked to be fairly strong as they had flat fronts and stuck out a bit behind the frame. When I saw him, I wondered if Meghan had inherited her severe myopia from him, as there is often a genetic component to myopia. But I was marrying Keegan, not Meghan and since everything was very intense at the church that day, I didn’t spend any time thinking about it. The wedding and the reception went well and when Keegan and I headed off on our honeymoon I was a pretty happy camper.
We had a really great time during the week we were away. But then it was time to head back home and Keegan had to get her training period in before she was a full-fledged nurse. She had a bit of trouble with her contacts while we were away, likely because she got chlorine from the pool water in her eyes. She did wear swim goggles over them, and normally the goggles worked fairly well, but she had to spend a couple of days not going in the pool. She still put her contacts in because she didn’t have glasses to wear, and as I result, I pressured her to get a pair of glasses as soon as we got back home.
As she had assured me, she would, Keegan went for an eye exam and she ordered new glasses. I just about flipped when she told me her new glasses were going to cost over a grand, and they wouldn’t even be ready for about 3 weeks. When I asked her how come they cost so much she just told me that is what the normal price is for glasses for someone with bad eyes. I didn’t say anything more, but I sure didn’t think her eyes were bad enough for that kind of price for a pair of glasses. I resolved that the next time Keegan needed new glasses I would look into purchasing them online as I knew some people that had gotten their glasses for under a hundred dollars.
It was a little over 3 weeks when the optical store called and left a message for Keegan saying that her glasses were ready. The following evening, I was sitting in front of the television watching a baseball game when Keegan asked from the bedroom if I was ready to see her wearing glasses. I yelled sure, bring em on.
Keegan walked out of the bedroom and I turned to look at her. I almost choked. The last time I saw her wearing glasses her glasses just looked like normal run of the mill minus glasses. The glasses Keegan had on looked to be even stronger than the glasses that her cousin Meghan had worn back before she got contacts. It was all I could do to stop myself from asking her what the heck happened to her eyes to make her wear those thick chunks of plastic in order to see. But I knew that our future together would be ruined if I said anything that was not positive. The frame that she had chosen was really nice so I said with as much cheer in my voice as I could muster that I really liked her choice of frame.
“I paid a lot of money for the thin lens option, and I thought they would be thinner.” Keegan said.
“They do look to be a little thick.” I said.
“At least they are not as thick as my cousin Megan’s are.” Keegan said.
It was a good thing that I had not said anything about them looking thicker than Meghan’s glasses then. But if Keegan’s glasses were that thick how thick could Meghan’s possibly be? I have to admit that right at that moment I was wishing I had pressured Keegan to get new glasses before we got married. However, once the shock of seeing Keegan wearing what could be called coke bottle glasses wore off, I realized that she was still the same great person I had dated for the past 10 years. After she got used to wearing glasses around the house and after I was accustomed to seeing my wife wearing her extremely thick glasses, I was going to make an effort to calmly ask her how it happened that her eyesight got so bad. I knew I was going to have to keep it low key though as I suspected that this would be a very sensitive subject.
While I was waiting for the right time, I spent a little bit of time searching the internet for information on severe myopia. Meghan was more the norm, as most very high myopes are seriously nearsighted almost from birth. But I did find that during the pubescent years myopia can increase rapidly and in some of the cases I had read about some people had increases 3 times a year between the ages of 13 and 20. And some of the increases were pretty substantial. One girl had her myopia jump by over -6D in just one year. And these high increases could keep going until the person was 25 years old or even older. Keegan had been 15 when she got her first contacts so she must have had to get new, stronger contacts fairly frequently.
Finally, the shock of seeing Keegan walking around the house wearing such thick glasses wore off. I knew I had never minded seeing Meghan wearing her thick glasses back in public school, so it wasn’t going to hurt me to accept the fact that Keegan was just as blind as Meghan was without glasses. I was just getting prepared to have a discussion with her about her eyesight when she asked me if we could go and visit Meghan and Joe in a couple of weeks. I thought that might be a good time to have a conversation about her eyesight while we were on the road, so I agreed. It was only about a 2-hour trip from our house to where Meghan and Joe lived so I hoped that would be enough time for me to get a tactful conversation going.
On Saturday morning we were going to leave early, and I didn’t say a thing when Keegan did not rush into the bathroom to put in her contact lenses. If she planned on wearing her glasses all day it would make my beginning conversation a lot easier. I was quite happy when she got into the passenger seat and she was still wearing her glasses. I didn’t say anything about her glasses until we were nicely settled in place on the freeway.
“I see you needed a day without contacts honey. Were they bothering you?” I questioned.
“My eye doctor suggested that for the long-term health of my eyes it would be a good thing if I were to cut back on my contact lens wear. I have been working at doing just that for over a month now. And Meghan has had trouble with wearing her contacts so when we talked the other day, we decided we would both wear glasses this weekend.” Keegan said.
“I was quite surprised at how thick your glasses had to be now. They were much thinner back when you were in grade 7.” I said to start the conversation.
“Yeah, I could tell you were a bit taken aback. I wondered what you would say, but you kept your mouth shut. Was that so you wouldn’t get into trouble by saying the wrong thing?” Keegan asked.
“I guess that was part of it. I really wished you had shared it with me earlier.” I replied.
“I might have if I had known. When I saw how thick these damned things were at the optical shop I just about cried. I had no idea my eyes were this bad. I mean, I knew I couldn’t see shit without my contacts, but these were supposed to be the thinnest lenses available.” Keegan said.
“So you really didn’t know?” I asked.
‘The first clue I had that my eyes were as bad as Meghan’s was when we were doing makeup before the wedding. I had to take my contacts out so they could do my eye makeup and Meghan let me use her glasses. I had to pull them away from my eyes a bit, but I knew that if I could see through her glasses I was in pretty bad shape. And then when we got back after the honeymoon and I had my eyes tested my contacts had to be increased to -22D from -20D. With -20D my glasses would have been -26D or -26.50D, but with -22D contacts these glasses ended up having to be -30D.” Keegan replied.
“So are Meghan’s eyes still a bit worse?” I asked.
“I think so. Her glasses are around -32D. I am not sure what her contacts are, but they must be around -22.50D or -23D.” Keegan told me.
“That is a really strong prescription.” I replied.
“In Meghan’s case her dad is nearsighted as well as her mom. Her dad has about a -10D prescription, and both our moms are around-17D. So that explains why Meghan is very myopic because she got it from both parents. But I only got it from my mom, so I don’t know why my eyes have gotten so bad. Once I started wearing contacts in grade 7 my eyes just got worse and worse. I had to get new contact lenses every 2 or 3 months one year. And once you need contacts that are over -12D you really can’t see a thing, so I guess I just didn’t see how bad my eyesight was.” Keegan said.
I had thought that Keegan was hiding her poor eyesight from me, but it looked like that was not the case. I was not nearly as upset as I had been when I first found out, and after listening to her explanation I realized that Keegan had not really tried to hide anything from me. I was just going to have to get used to seeing my wife wearing very strong glasses.
We had an enjoyable couple of days with Joe and Meghan. They had 2 children and they were pretty sure that was it. Portia, the young lady who was our flower girl was a very friendly young lady. I did ask Meghan how strong her glasses were and was told her prescription was -4.50D at the moment. Bryan, the 2 year old boy was a bit of a handful and I commented that it was a good thing he didn’t need glasses yet as I was sure he would have broken them. Meghan and Keegan both wore their gasses for the entire weekend and Keegan still had them on for our drive home.
“I was just thinking that if you don’t mind, I would like it if you wore your glasses more.” I said.
“Why would you want that Rob?” Keegan asked.
“Well, I am just starting to get used to seeing you wearing glasses. I sort of like the looks of them on you and I think it would help if you wore them a bit more often.” I replied.
‘I won’t promise anything right now. It would be nice to be able to wear them without feeling so self-conscious about them. All I can do is to tell you I will try.”
“That’s good enough for me honey.” I replied.
Keegan had to do an early shift the following morning and I noticed that for the first time since we were married, she left the house wearing her glasses. And that night when I came home, she still had her glasses on. To me this meant that she was going to wear them more and more. And I was fine with that. I had a hard time getting used to seeing her wearing her glasses, but as I got used to it, I found her as beautiful as ever. I didn’t plan to marry a girl who wore thick glasses but plans sometimes change.
Specs4ever July 2017
https://vision-and-spex.com/plans-sometimes-change-t1828.html