When my sister and I were young she wanted to wear glasses in the worst way. When she was 10 and was in grade 5, she convinced our mom that she needed to have her eyes tested, and even though I was pretty sure she really didn’t need them, she came home with a pair of glasses. Her first glasses were quite weak, and I could easily see through the lenses when I tried them on. The following year, when she was in grade 6, she had her eyes tested again and needed new, stronger glasses. This time it wasn’t quite as easy for me to make my eyes focus to be able to see through those lenses, but after having them on for a few minutes my eyes would adjust, and I could see quite well through them. Her first pair of glasses now sat unused in her bureau drawer and since the frames were a rectangular unisex frame they did not look out of place on my face. I borrowed them and started off just wearing them in school as well as anytime I was at home in my room reading. Anne Marie and I had talked about the fact that we both wanted to wear glasses, and she helped me out as much as she possibly could. Our plan was that as soon as she got her next pair of glasses, she would give me her second pair and she had selected another unisex frame just for that purpose. Both Anne Marie and I were good students and we had both been avid readers and spent a lot of time coloring from the time we were each about 4, There was only a year’s difference between us, and we actually were as much best friends as we were brother and sister. I was a little jealous that my younger sister had managed to get her own glasses, first but I was determined I would eventually get a pair of my own. Finally, the day came when I could no longer read the board at school, I told my parent’s that I thought I might need glasses now, and they took us both back to the same doctor that they had used for Anne Marie. Whatever Anne Marie had been doing seemed to have worked, because she needed stronger glasses again. If I remember correctly this time her prescription was -3.25. She again chose another unisex frame and I picked almost the same frame that she had worn for her second pair of glasses, which I now knew had a prescription of -2.50D for both eyes. We had planned it this way so that I could wear her old glasses right away, and hopefully my eyes would soon adapt to the lenses, which were stronger than my own -1.00D ones. This worked as planned, and I had no trouble adjusting to the slightly stronger glasses, which I wore all of the time. Our eye doctor had recommended yearly vision exams. By the time the year had passed I had completely adapted to wearing Anne Marie’s old glasses and I wondered if I possibly needed an even stronger prescription. I had gotten my sister to let me wear her new glasses around the house a few times. She had to wear her old glasses the few times I did this, and she complained that they were really too weak for her, except when she was reading. I was pretty sure we would both need stronger glasses, and that was the case. I went in first and came out with a prescription of -3.50D. Anne Marie had increased by another diopter to -4.25D. For some unexplainable reason we both liked that fact that our glasses were now strong enough that people could tell that we really needed them. Over the next few years, we both needed increases and by the time I graduated from high school my prescription was -13.50D. Anne Marie had a few higher increases than I had and by the time she went on to college her prescription was -18.50D. She liked her strong glasses, and even though she had chosen the thinnest lenses she could get in her strong prescription she never once expressed a desire to try wearing contacts. And if any of her numerous boyfriends were to suggest that she might look better in contacts he would soon disappear from her life. After I graduated from high school, I had gone into construction work, and I was working for a painting contractor who specialized in painting new houses. I started off taping and spraying the fresh drywall, but not only was that a boring job, my glasses got all covered with paint, and I didn’t like that. My boss liked my work ethic and he realized that my glasses were a problem. Sure, I had an old pair that I wore while working but still I had to keep them clean, and it was not an easy job getting the dry paint spatters off my lenses without scratching them. The next step, to keep me working for him, was for him to train me in the final painting of the trim in the new homes, which required a lot more care, so you didn’t get paint on the carpet or the tile of finished houses. Eventually, after I had proven my worth, I got to go to jobs that involved re painting older homes, which required a lot more brush work, and a lot more care. Since I was working in construction, I needed to wear safety glasses. I liked this because my safety glasses appeared to be even thicker than Anne Marie’s thin lensed -18.50D glasses. I enjoyed the way I looked with the thicker lenses, and I would have even liked it better if my glasses could have been stronger, but for some reason my former myopic progression had halted, and I didn’t seem to be able to go past my -13.50D prescription. Like my younger sister I was still very happy that I had become as myopic as I had. Over the next few years both Anne Marie and I married. I had 3 kids, 2 boys and a girl, and Anne Marie had 2 girls. After 23 years of marriage my wife and I separated, but the kids were all over 18 so other than me continuing to assist with their schooling costs, being single again didn’t really make much difference to me. At this time, I was 46 years old and since our parents had both passed away, I had no reason to stick around the town I had been raised in, so I moved to be closer to my sister. We still had a special bond, likely because of the way we had both wanted to wear glasses as kids. I wondered if we would have needed glasses anyway, because both her daughters wore glasses, one of which had a pretty strong prescription. One of my boys and my daughter also were shortsighted, but neither of them were over -10D so maybe Anne Marie and I would have needed glasses anyway. Before my wife and I separated I had done a lot of reading about GOC, and I had purchased myself a pair of +20D contact lenses. I also ordered a fairly inexpensive pair of -40D double myodiscs on the internet, and I had already done enough research to find that + 20D contacts were equivalent to -26.50D of myopia. Along with my existing -13.50D prescription I would need -40D for glasses and I was pleased to find that my vision was reasonably acceptable with my -40D double myodiscs. I had to wear them pushed right tight to the bridge of my nose and I knew I could use another diopter or so in my glasses, but I did all right wearing them. Of course, I had to keep this a secret because my wife would never understand, but after I moved to the area where Anne Marie lived, I was able to wear my -40D glasses pretty much all of the time. One of the reasons I moved was to help her out if needed, as her husband had recently passed away from a massive heart attack. I still kept up my trade of painting home interiors. I found another pair of similar -40D glasses on the internet and I spent the money to buy them, as I knew that having only one pair of glasses would not be satisfactory. A person really needing -40D glasses would be very helpless if they ever fell off, got broken, or got paint splattered on them so badly that you had to clean them. In some cases, I had only talked to the homeowner on the telephone when I accepted the job. In other cases, I had to come by to give them a quote, and every time I met a new customer, I could see them looking at my glasses and likely wondering what sort of job I would be able to do with my obviously poor vision. But I did good work, and soon word got around that the guy with the thick glasses was a decent painter and a hard worker. After a day’s work when I got home to my 2-bedroom bungalow at night I would take out my contacts and put my regular -13.50D glasses on. I knew that even though my contact lenses were extended wear it would be better for my eyes in the long run if I didn’t wear them for too many hours a day. Once in a while I would leave them in on a Friday night and Anne Marie and I would go out to a restaurant for a visit and dinner. She liked going with me when I was wearing my strong double myodiscs, so she must have had a similar desire to wear even stronger glasses, however she never mentioned anything to me about her wanting to try GOC. The only problem I had when I was working was when I was up on a ladder cutting in the new wall color to the white ceiling. My clarity of vision was, as I mentioned before, quite satisfactory. However, the strong lenses minified everything so much that I had to get much closer to my work in order to see what I was doing really well. It was sort of the same when I was reading a book. I had to bring my reading material a lot closer in order to see the print and I would often get large print books whenever I could. I hadn’t had an eye exam for at least 5 years now. I didn’t seem to have any problems when I was wearing my -13.50D glasses around home in the evenings, but I never watched TV and I mostly just read before bed. But I did notice that when I was driving to work, I was having a harder time reading the street signs. With the amount of minimization in my -40D glasses I never could see the street signs a long way off and I had to depend a lot on memory, but now I found I was getting almost right up to the sign before I could see it. With myopia, by my age it never increased. At least that is what I had always read. But one day I headed back to my old area where I grew up to attend my daughter’s graduation. I was wearing my old -13.50D glasses, and I noticed that the blur was intolerable. When I got home, I called my sister’s optometrist and set up an appointment. I was shocked. My new prescription was going to be -15.00D, a full -1.50D increase. Now I was going to have to get new contact lenses in order to be able to continue wearing my -40D glasses. I wondered what I should order. I had always thought that I could have used another diopter of power in my strong glasses, but it was impossible to find -41D or stronger glasses as cheap as the -40D ones I wore. I then decided I would lower the power of my contacts to +18D. The eye doctor had agreed with me that it was unusual for a 50-year-old man to become more myopic, but he said he had seen a few cases before. One lady in her mid-60’s had required a -5D increase in an already strong prescription, but he thought maybe she had what he called a nuclear cataract. That is where the inner lens in your eye thickens and develops a little more plus power instead of clouding over. The doctor felt I was a little to young for that though, and he thought that my eyeball had just elongated a little more. Once I got my new -15D glasses I really didn’t notice any difference in my life. I could see a lot better but having a prescription of -15D compared to -13.50D did not affect me at all. The only thing that did change was that now I had a +1D reading add in my new glasses, but they were multifocal lenses and there was no bifocal line. And the doctor had suggested that if I was doing a lot of reading, I could easily wear my old glasses if the multifocal lens was inconvenient. My +18D contacts arrived in the mail before my new glasses came in, so I had been wearing them for a week or so under my old -40D glasses. I did notice an improvement in my vision, so I was a lot happier. I could work one step down the ladder and this way I didn’t bonk my head on the ceilings as often. I also was able to read street signs at a little further distance, so I guess the people following me were happier as I could now signal well before I had to jamb my brakes on to turn. And I could see the house numbers a lot easier. My eyes really had changed, and my new eye doctor wanted me to come back every year. I didn’t think that was necessary, but he had scared me a little by talking about glaucoma, and macular degeneration as well as the high chance for retinal detachments in very shortsighted eyes. Naturally my sister and I talked about that the next time I went over to her place. She had not wanted to go out to a restaurant, so she invited me over for dinner on our usual Friday night. I wore my new glasses as she had never seen them, and the conversation was about everything the eye doctor had told me. He had the same discussion with her a few weeks earlier. We both decided that since we were still very happy that we were as nearsighted as we were, we would be well advised if we had yearly vision exams. Her prescription had not changed since she was in college, and she had about 10 pairs of glasses in her current prescription that she could choose from, so she was not wanting to have any further increases. I wouldn’t have cared. I would have loved to be able to wear my -40D glasses without the hassle of putting in my contact lenses, but that wasn’t likely to happen. Any further increases to my prescription were just not likely to occur. When I had my annual eye exam the following year, there were no changes. I still felt I was seeing quite well, both with my GOC combination as well as with my -15D multifocal glasses. I was booked up for work, and there was more coming in every day. I still loved going out to chat with a new customer and watching the expression on their faces when they saw the thick double myodiscs the guy they were considering using to do their painting wore. I loved being the painter with the thick -40D glasses and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Specs4ever March 2020
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