Wednesday saw us on the way to Greenwich where I had new lenses fitted into my glasses.
Without them, I see double. This began occurring about 10 years ago. If I looked from a window, sometimes a house in the distance seemed to float.
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Perhaps it was the Botox injections I had been getting to relieve headache?
My neurologist insisted they were not the cause.
The problem came and went, so I decided it was due to fatigue and it was not that bad.
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A year or so went by and I decided it was time to consult an optometrist.
For a few years, I had been enjoying not wearing glasses after Lasix surgery.
This was not a matter of vanity, just that glasses fog up and fall off and get sat on, and so forth.
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The consultation with a new optometrist was not very satisfactory, I have completely forgotten why.
As I recall, I was to see a specialist and was dubious about it. As it happened, the double vision spontaneously resolved.
It really did.
Bizarre.
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The trouble with having strange things happen to you is that people tend not to believe what you tell them.
“Not possible.”
“Doesn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t.”
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“Be more forceful!” I’ve been told.
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The fact of the matter is that doctors and “physician’s assistants” are increasingly busy and really don’t have time for silly old fools with what seem to be imaginary afflictions.
It’s been 35 years since the first time I was told I would have to live with a painful condition. I was just 40.
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Anyway, I digress.
By the time I hauled myself back to New York State, I was once more in glasses. I luckily have been able to wear progressives, so I don’t have to keep looking for the right pair.
Grant was not able to adjust to progressives, finding that his eyes could not line up with the correct part of the lens. Which is why he is always searching for his glasses.
The stress and fatigue of moving a household and 13 cats from coast to coast was enough to make anyone see double, so for a while I ignored it, but when it became unsafe for me to drive, I found a new optometrist and she is wonderful.
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My lenses which are of normal thickness, contain prisms that compensate for my misaligned eyes. How this is accomplished, I have no idea.
It seems like magic.
A tremendous technological accomplishment.
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One supposes that at some time in the future, technology will move the additional distance freeing the optometrist from a quite incredible sequence of manual steps taken to pin down the precise prescription required.
This is after the eyes themselves have been examined using a variety of high-tech equipment.
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For such a sophisticated result, I find it amazing that it all must be calculated by hit or miss:
“Is this better?…Or this?” etc, etc.
Lights and charts having to be manually manipulated to make lines intersect and script readable.
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When, after some 40 minutes, the goal is in sight, the patient dons a cumbersome frame into which may be inserted a combination of lenses. Wearing this apparatus, you walk about the clinic trying to evaluate the combinations.
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Somewhere in more affluent parts of the world, perhaps there is already a machine capable of making all these adjustments in moments.
In the meantime, my doctor is very gracious and pains-taking and for the time being, the world is in slightly better focus.
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A week or so ago, I wrote of this Fall that it was restrained. Did I even say “lack-lustre”? I was nevertheless enjoying it a great deal.
Then quite suddenly, the world erupted in colour.
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When my aunt and uncle moved to Maine after their retirement, I used to fly up during the Fall, usually the first week of October.
That was when I first appreciated the true spectacle of a New England Fall.
It made me fall in love with New England which is likely what finally brought me back from Washington.
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The sky was capricious this day.
A long gap in the cloud winked to offer an entirely different image than what would have been.
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Why, I don’t know, but it all makes me want to laugh.
Something I rarely do, as it happens.
This day, there was another treat…
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“Hawk!” said Grant, slowing the car.
Usually, they fly off. This Red-tail posed.
Isn’t it gorgeous?
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When I was a child, sometimes we got a box of Newberry Fruits, as a treat.
These colours remind me of them.
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We are having the aquatic weekend that was promised, but don’t think I’m going to let you off that easy.
More to follow!
I was never fond of Newberry Fruits. Something about the spongy texture and liquid inside never felt right to me as a child. But theyn served well as a popular gift for older female relatives.
Best wishes, Pete.
I think I wouldn’t care for them now but back then I think I liked them well enough.
That red tree next to the “Town of Cambridge” sign is incredibly beautiful! Autumn is turning into a spectacle in your world – so beautiful! That’s why we have to appreciate our eyes so much … to see beautiful autumn colours and majestic hawks!
So beutiful colors and hawk! Hopefully doctors can cure your sight.
For some unknown reason, the trees here are grimly hanging onto still green leaves. I have no idea why. Usually by now the world is full of fallen brown,red and yellow leaves and the trees are skeletal. Strange, but so lovely that the world is still green.
Some here are still green too while others have been naked for weeks. I imagine them saying “Oh to hell with doing all that” and just dumping the lot.
To be honest, I know who they feel…
*how*
Everything comes to him/her who waits!