Oh This is Scary

Before I start, I'm going to just put this out there: what I'm about to talk about matters a lot to me and bothers me a lot. Still, I feel like I might as well put this out there because I'm hoping at least one person can relate to this.

This all started when I was thinking about how my eye was being a bit strange today, probably because of how much time I spent on the computer yesterday, which is just completely my fault. I started wearing glasses in the first grade and, back then, I was the only person I knew who needed glasses that early. Now I hear about children that aren't even 10 needing glasses, and it does bother me because every time, I wonder if they're going to end up blind.

I'll just put this out there right now for people who don't know, being blind isn't that image you see of people with sticks to check where they're going, or those people that need dogs to guide them. It just means that your vision is so bad that no amount of corrective lenses, no matter their prescription (for those that don't have glasses/contacts, think about it as how thick the glass needs to be on the glasses) can correct your vision to 20/20. Now, I'm not at that point, and I hope I never will be.

There are people whose vision isn't so bad that they need to wear glasses or contacts all the time. Usually a lot of people who first get glasses are like that. I wasn't. From the very beginning in first grade, I was told that I'd always need to wear glasses or contacts. I hated it. I was afraid I would be made fun of, or that I would look like a freak. That wasn't the case, but it was still pretty bad for me. My parents told me at first to just take off my glasses and leave them in the classroom when I had recess or P.E., but when I did that, everything was blurry to me. Even squinting did almost nothing for me. One day I forgot to take them off and when I went to recess, everything was crystal clear to me. Now, since I was only about 6 years old, I didn't understand that wasn't exactly a great thing, but from then on, I always wore my glasses.

As I grew older, my vision kept getting worse. To this day, I have yet to meet a person around my age whose vision is worse than mine. Currently, my prescription for my contacts lenses are 8.5 (right eye) and 7.5 (left eye). Now, to a lot of people, that might not mean anything, so I'll give an example of what it's like to not have my contacts in or my glasses on. I did an experiment the other day to see just how far I can see clearly or semi-clearly without any corrective lenses. I held out two fingers, and slowly backed them away from my face. When my hand was an arm's length away, I was sure that I wouldn't be able to tell that my hand was holding up 2 fingers. Imagine that, not being able to see clearly if an object is farther than an arm's length away.

When I was younger, my dad would joke with me about how I inherited my bad vision from him. However, once I was told how bad my vision was this past summer, my dad told me that I needed to do my best to protect my eyes. His vision is bad, but at my age, his vision wasn't nearly as bad as mine. He then warned me that if my vision kept worsening, it could lead to retinal detachment.

Retinal detachment is exactly what it sounds like, your retina will peel away from the support tissue under it. If it's left untreated, it will lead to blindness. The kind where people wear sunglasses and have something to check their path for obstacles. The worst part? You need to treat retinal detachment within 72 hours or the damage will be permanent. The best part for me? Retinal detachment can be caused by extreme nearsightedness. Lucky me.

Now, those who know me and talk to me on a daily basis know that I do joke about how bad my vision is. I'll laugh and cheer that nobody can 'match' my vision, but really, I feel really insecure about my vision. The worst part is that I can't really just never use a computer or phone ever again, because they're important parts of my life. I write a lot of papers on my computer, and I stay connected with my friends on the computer. I can even ask my friends for help using my computer or phone.

Now, I'm not saying that one day if we meet up years from now I'm not going to be able to see you. I know a few adults with vision much worse than mine, and they can still see. That does help with my fears. When I was younger and was told I was going blind, I panicked because I thought that meant I wouldn't be able to see anything ever again. I was so relieved when I was told that going blind didn't mean that. However, as long as my vision stays bad (and it will, since there's no way for your eyes to get better), there's always the chance that, because I'm at a higher risk for retinal detachment, it might happen some day.

So that's one of my biggest fears in life. Arguably my biggest fear. Some might be surprised that it's not dying, but that's a story for another blog post. I'm just so afraid of losing one of the my five senses while I'm alive. I mean, yeah, when you die, you lose all five, but I can't even imagine not being able to live with all five of my senses. I mean, come on! I only get five to begin with, and it's possible to lose all five! So not cool! Anyways, I feel I've rambled enough to get out my feelings. Until next time!

...which could be anywhere from a few days to a week and a half...