Suzy looked up from her Chemistry homework and rubbed her eyes again. Maybe she had been studying too long again but she was desperately keen to get the grades she needed to study medicine at university. The problem was the longer she studied, the more her eyes seemed to blur and eventually she had to just give up. It was weird as she had always prided herself on her great eyesight – she could always see the bus numbers better than any of her friends and sat at the back of the class as she had no trouble reading the board. However recently the studying was becoming more of a struggle. A couple of her friends had started wearing glasses as they learned to drive, but Suzy had tried them on, as everyone in her friendship group had, and they just made things smaller in the distance, so she was sure she didn’t need glasses. She had one last rub of her eyes, looked at the book again and decided it was time to give up studying for the evening and head downstairs for something to eat. Her mum was out at an evening class and her Dad away with work again so it was time to pop something in the microwave for dinner. She went downstairs, selected a lasagne from the freezer and waited for it to heat up before heading into the lounge to watch some TV whilst eating it – something she’d have never got away with if her parents had been home. She turned on the TV and picked up the copy of the Radio Times that her parents always kept in the magazine rack to see what was on. As she did, a pair of gold reading glasses fell at her feet. This plain rectangular pair of glasses had been bought a couple of years ago from Boots the Chemists, had a permanent home on top of the Radio Times and were shared by her parents when they needed to quickly read something in the lounge and didn’t have their own reading glasses to hand – she always thought them a bit plain and unattractive, a bit too big for her mum’s petite features and a bit too small for her Dad’s large head but they seemed to do the job. Her parents were both in their mid 40s now and neither of them could read without the aid of glasses. Her Dad had only just succumbed in the last year or so, but her mum had always worn reading glasses for as long as Suzy could remember. Even when she was a little girl Suzy recalled that her mum always popped her glasses on to read her bedtime stories. Suzy picked the frames from the floor, but instead of putting them back in the magazine rack, she put them on and picked up the Radio Times. She gasped as everything seemed so clear – she lifted them up to check that they really had made a difference and the words on the page blurred again like the symbols in her Chemistry text book. Up and down she lifted the glasses to check and double check her vision, and every time the magnifying lenses were in front of her eyes the letters on the page came into focus. Just as she was marvelling at the effect, she saw car headlights coming onto the driveway and knew that her mum had returned. Suzy quickly returned the glasses to their usual resting place and resumed eating her meal. She heard the key in the lock of the front door and the familiar sound of her mum’s voice crying “I’m home!”. “Hi mum, I’m in the lounge” said Suzy “Hi darling, you given up studying for the night?” “Yes, I was feeling a bit tired so I came down to watch TV but there’s not much on” “Oh well, I’ll put the kettle on – fancy a cuppa?” “No thanks, I’m going to get an early night once I’ve finished this” said Suzy and went up the stairs to bed still considering what might be happening to her eye sight. The next morning when Suzy came down for breakfast her mum was already eating a slice of toast and looking at the Daily Mail that they had delivered every morning. Suzy glanced through the lenses of her mum’s pink plastic framed glasses from behind and could see that they magnified the newspaper print in a similar way to the pair in the magazine rack in the lounge. Maybe this was what she needed to wear to stop her eyes going blurry whilst studying. She resolved to do some more research into it later. “Hurry up Suzy, I’ll drop you at school but I don’t want to be late for work today” said her mum whilst taking off her glasses and putting them into the flowery case before snapping it shut and putting it into her handbag. “OK, no problem – I can eat this in the car” said Suzy whilst buttering her toast. At school that day Suzy started looking at all the glasses worn by the other girls in her class and the teachers. Her best friend Liz had recently turned 17 and started learning to drive and it was the driving instructor who advised her to get an eye test – to Liz’s surprise she was told that she should start wearing glasses for driving and other long-distance viewing. Suzy had tried them on for a laugh when Liz first got them but they didn’t make a lot of difference to be honest. Liz only occasionally wore them at school to see the board, and when she put them on in their biology class that day, Liz glanced sideways through the lenses and saw that everything looked a bit smaller in direct contrast to her mum’s which seemed to magnify everything. In the row in front of Suzy and Liz sat a girl called Janet Robertson. Janet was the brightest girl in the school, very quiet and studious, and wore glasses all the time and had done since Suzy had known her when they started secondary school 6 years ago. Suzy took time during the lesson to study the lenses in Janet’s glasses, they were much thicker than Liz’s and everything looked really tiny – Suzy reasoned that Janet must have quite poor eyesight and mused that she had never seen Janet without her glasses. At lunchtime Suzy went to the school library – she made the excuse to Liz that she needed to look something up for her homework but she really wanted to find out more about glasses and eyesight. She went to the shelves that held the Encyclopaedia Brittanicas and after a bit of searching through various volumes found the section about eye disorders – she learned a whole new vocabulary – myopia, hyperopia, presbyopia, astigmatism and started to understand a bit more about the context of why her parents and her friends might be having to wear glasses, and about her own eyesight. She deduced that Liz had myopia, probably quite mildly, whilst Janet was probably also myopic but a lot more severely. Her dad had presbyopia and her mum probably did too but she was puzzled that her mum wore reading glasses before she reached the age of 40 and wondered if she had hyperopia or astigmatism as well. She put the encyclopaedia back and went away a little more enlightened but still puzzled by her own sight issues. That day after school she walked into town before getting the bus home and went into Boots the Chemists, she needed a few toiletries but whilst walking round was drawn to the rack of glasses on show which said “ready readers”. These were the type of glasses that her mum and dad had to read the Radio Times that she had found quite helpful the night before. There was a little chart next to the rack with prints in different sizes and an indication as to the strength that might be needed if you couldn’t read the print adjacent to it. The numbers ranged from +1.00 to +3.00 and seemed to go up in increments of 0.5. Suzy had no idea how strong the ones were that she had tried at home last night so decided to start in the middle. She had a quick look round to check nobody was watching, and reached for a pink plastic pair of glasses with a little sticker that said +2.00 on the lens. She was nervous and shaking a little as she put them on and then looked at the little chart. Everything seemed so big and clear that it was incredible – Suzy could hardly believe it. “Can I help you?” came the voice of a female shop assistant who Suzy had failed to notice behind her. Suzy snatched the glasses off and replaced them on the rack. “Er, no I was just trying these on” she stammered. She could feel her face blushing. “Well these are reading glasses for older people, not for children” said the assistant. If you think you need glasses you should speak to your parents about getting a proper eye test. “Yes…er…sorry, I will” said Suzy and rushed out of the shop. She was still blushing and flustered on the bus ride home. The brief glimpse through the ready readers in Boots along with those she’d tried on yesterday evening showed her that it was magnifying lenses that benefitted her and not the myopic lenses of her friend Liz. However, she was confused why she might need these at the age of 17 rather than when she got into her 40s. She kind of wanted to know what was going on with her eyes but was also nervous about going to the opticians or mentioning it to her parents. She had never had a proper eye test before and had no idea what to expect. When she got home, the house was empty as both parents were still at work and, whilst waiting for the kettle to boil, she retrieved the boring gold reading glasses from the living room and decided to do a bit more experimentation with them. She took out a couple of her text books and looked at some of the writing through the lenses of the glasses and then lifted the frames to look bare-eyed at the same text. They definitely helped a lot, everything was clearer and a bit larger too – she could almost feel her eyes relaxing when looking through them. She looked at a few other things in the kitchen too – lists of ingredients on packets were clearer, she then tried looking at things further away like the calendar hanging on the wall. She could read that too, although it wasn’t really much clearer with the glasses or without. She then looked out of the window into the garden – she could see things OK through the glasses, maybe not quite as clear as without but not that much difference really – which she found a bit odd as these were meant to be glasses for reading up close only. She had a look at herself in the mirror wearing them – the frames were hideous and didn’t suit her at all, but she quite liked the way her eyes looked bigger through them, they looked pretty good and she imagined if she’d had eye make up on as well then they would really be accentuated. Suzy wondered if she did need glasses, what kind of frames would suit her? Liz’s frames were gold metal oval frames that Suzy thought were a bit small for her. Janet Robertson had metal frames too, but hers were more rectangular and silver. Suzy didn’t like those either and thought them a bit boyish. She thought about her mum’s glasses – they were pink plastic frames and were a lot more feminine – she liked those. She remembers her mum’s last pair too – they were clear plastic with a hint of blue and the arms had a little dip in them so they looked like they joined nearer the bottom of the frame – Suzy had always liked those and she thought her mum looked really fashionable and stylish when she got them a couple of years ago. She thought the pair before that were plastic too but couldn’t quite remember and then she had a thought…. “I wonder if mum keeps any of her old pairs anywhere?”
to be continued….