I Can See Clearly Next Week

For the past few months — the past year or so, truth be told — I’ve been having trouble getting a comfortable distance for reading (and working on pens). Often as not, I just take my glasses off and use my presbyopic superpowers to read or examine nibs or whatever, four inches from my nose.
 
I had a late dinner date last night, though, which meant that I had more time than usual available in the afternoon. So when I got home from campus I called a local optometrist to see whether I could come out for an eye exam. They squeezed me in, and the good news is that sometime next week I’ll be sporting a new pair of glasses, with a better prescription for the reading range of my bifocals. Better still, Duke has very good eye care benefits, so I still have both arms and both legs. I may even take my doctor’s recommendation and get a second pair of glasses that’s 100% reading-distance.
 
While she was poking around in my eyes, she spotted the floaters that have affected me (and Doc) for a long time. She checked to see whether I have any of the early symptoms of detached retina (flashes of light, a sudden increase in the number of floaters; I think I may have had something like this long ago, in college, which seems to have resolved itself), and as she was gazing into my eyes and ordering me to look up, down, left, right (that “left” and “right” part was the difficult aspect of the examination), she made some excited sounds. It turns out that not only do I have floaters, but also asteroid hyalosis. I choose to think of this as having sparkling stars in my eyes (or “my eye,” to be exact) rather than as having dog-eyes.

4 thoughts on “I Can See Clearly Next Week

  1. The Wikipedia article you point to says that no treatment is called for, usually. What’s the prognosis? (No matter what, you will always be starry-eyed to me.)

    Fingers crossed awkwardly into a Jewish star,

    David W.

  2. I plan to do same when the weather does not require extra outdoor coat, hat, mittens etc. You’d be amazed at the effort all that clothing takes! Get Pippa to take a picture of you in your new specs. xxx

  3. David, Mom, and Pip — Dr. Pratt evinced no worries whatever about my prospects. She was mostly just delighted to have inspected someone with unusual eyes. Only if I start detecting evidence of retinal detachment should I be concerned.
     
    So you may unlace your fingers, David, though if you put in a request for jobs for Margaret and me before you let go altogether, I’d be very thankful.

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