Sunday, September 18, 2011

Contact lenses

My eyes have gotten to that irritating, in-between state, whereI can just about do without wearing glasses, but wearing them makes everything looks so much clearer!

But when you want to watch television lying down sideways, glasses are painful. I thought of finally moving on to contact lenses.

But getting lenses in the US meant an appointment and a visit to the doctor, which my laziness didn't let me do. I instead called my brother in Bombay and got them delivered from there.
All excited, I opened the parcel to not find a case for the lenses. I ordered a set of 3 immediately on Amazon, and waited two days to get them. I was now ready to watch tv!

I had never wore lenses before, and had no idea how complicated wearing lenses for the first time is. A contact lens, being so delicate, can be held in both directions. The direction with the greater convexity is supposedly the correct direction. I was absolutely unable to decide which was the correct direction, so I started trying. I poked my eye for half an hour, and after my eyes were as bloodshot as I've never seen them before, I gave up.

The next day, I turned to Youtube to teach me how to put on the lenses. A ridiculous quack explained the procedurein great detail, but my trials still did not succeed.

I took these lenses to San Francisco, where I was visiting my sister, to learn from someone with experience. She had gotten her Lasik surgery done, so she did not have any solution for the lenses. She taught me how to do it, but only in words.

After a month of giving my eyes some rest from my poking, I took up the task again yesterday. Voila! The left eye lens was friendly enough to stay in! Now that I believed that something was not wrong with the shape of my eyes, I poked my right eye with more determination and finally succeeded. I cried; mainly due to the poking, but also in happiness!

I went to a friend's housewarming party after that, and he pointed out he thought I cried and came! After hearing my story, they started a conversation about how if you sleep with contact lenses on, they could end up stuck inside your eye and could require surgery! So I came home last night scared but ensured I took them off before sleeping.

I woke up in the middle of the night, and thought I was still wearing them. I ran to the mirror and started poking my eye. When you wear lenses, it's easy to forget you're wearing them, especially with my not-so-bad-that-I-require-glasses eyes. After nothing came out of either eye, I checked he case and realized I had taken them out the previous night! So much for watching TV!