Bifocals Before 40

See, what had happened was

My eyes were hurting so I stopped wearing my driving glasses. And I had stopped wearing my reading glasses because the doctor said I didn't need them. Sure, I would get headaches after watching TV for more than 30 minutes at a time, but that was because I was tired and cranky and needed to eat something, right?

Now, my contact at the temp agency insisted I get health insurance. So I signed up for medical and vision – almost $30 bucks out of my paycheck. For an $11/hr job, that's not chump change.

(Come to find out the medical coverage does not qualify as the minimum under the new federal healthcare law. So I'm going to have to go to the exchange, which is irksome.)

One day my head was pounding, my eyes barely focusing as I drove doing errands. I made an eye doctor appointment for the same day.

Got the puffer test (ugh). Got my eyes dilated. In the initial examination, we learned my left eye is competent, while my right eye is jacked up (everything is blurry with that one). The doctor looked into my eyeballs with a flashlight, tried some stuff with the fancy lens machine, looked at the glasses I brought and determined

I didn't need new lenses. My driving glasses were of good prescription, as were my reading glasses. In other words, I should be wearing both.

Oh. Well, that's not bad news for a $10 visit. No new frames needed. Huzzah!

Settling down in front of the big TV, I realized it was at a distance, so I put on my driving (i.e., distance) glasses and

No headache. Fancy that!

And so all was well in the kingdom.

Until I tried to watch the big TV and crochet at the same time.

Settle into the big chair, get yarn into lap, put on distance specs, watch show. At commercial, take off distance specs, put on reading glasses, play with yarn. Show's back on – take off reading, put on distance, drop yarn work into lap.

Oh, that ain't working.

So it was back to the optometrist for bifocals.

Well, progressives. Because I looked at pictures of bifocals online and they were not aesthetically pleasing. After a few weeks of waiting...Ta-Da! 

 

That's right. All the bigger to hold more lens, my dear.

And that's how I got bifocals (er, progressives) before I turned 40.