Seeing Double

Day 136: Roughly twenty-five years ago, the optometrist I'd been using for most of my adult life was forced to retire due to health concerns. For the next several years, I bounced from one doctor to another until I finally found one who was satisfactory. Now bear in mind that my vision is quite poor and had been steadily declining over the years. I was used to having to get stronger and stronger corrections as often as my insurance and budget would allow. There came a point when the possibility of bringing my sight to 20/20 appeared impossible, and I thought nothing of the fact that I was seeing a faint secondary image in offset when I looked at road signs or billboards. What I did not realize was that the new optometrist had dropped prism correction from my prescription without telling me. I might have gone on with double vision for the rest of my life if my insurance company hadn't dropped that doctor from their network. Earlier this month, I saw yet another new doctor. When he asked me if I had any particular concerns, I mentioned the double vision, expecting him to tell me I had cataracts. Instead, he asked, "Have you ever had prism correction in your lenses?" When I told him I thought it was there, he said, "No, not in these. Let's try something." He went on to explain that prism would pull the two images together, eliminating the secondary smear. When my new glasses arrived last week, I noticed an immediate improvement in the clarity of road signs, but the real surprise came when I drove home from Seattle in the dark on Monday. I was no longer being blinded by headlight beams shattered into a thousand points of light! I can see clearly for the first time in at least ten years.