20/20

Have you ever wondered what 20/20 vision means? My tech savvy son says “Dad, you’ve got a smart phone. You don’t have to wonder anything”.  So what I learned is that the chart our eye technicians use to test our vision is a Snellen chart. This commonly used chart is  named for its creator Herman Snellen, a Dutch ophthalmologist who drew it in 1862. This chart, as you well know, has rows of random letters that from top to bottom get progressively smaller. 20/20 vision means  that you can read the smallest letters from twenty feet that someone with normal sight can read at twenty feet.  Vision such as 20/10 is even better. This means that you read from  twenty feet what someone with normal vision can read at ten.  And who decides what “normal vision” is?  My smartphone didn’t tell me that. We have to accept that as a given.

I tend to catastrophize.  When I’m stressed, it’s my knee-jerk reaction to take the situation to its darkest conclusion. “Darkest conclusion" is figurative, but this story involved, I feared,  a literal dark conclusion. I sometimes let my imagination work against me. I’m actually getting much better about this phenomenon, but it’s still a problem from time to time.  This situation was not one of those when I imagined a good outcome.

There was an invasion of Asian Lady Bird Beetles on the south side of the house.  There were hundreds of them. There were so many, they were starting to get in the house.  I normally wear safety glasses to do this work since I’m treating above my head. But that afternoon, nearly two years ago, I didn’t bother to put them on.  I worked for about thirty minutes treating the outside wall and all the cracks and crevices.  And then I treated inside the house. That night at dinner my wife asked, “What’s wrong with your eyes?”  I replied, “I don’t know. What is wrong with them?”  She said, “They’re bloodshot and slightly bulging.”  I went immediately and washed them out with water, but the damage was done.  I washed my eyes out several more times before I went to bed. The next day they looked better, but I was having some problems with my vision.  That night driving was difficult. Oncoming lights and street lights cast halos that were several feet in diameter.  I could see to drive, but it wasn’t easy.  All the lights from automobiles and street signs were way too bright and big.  The next day and that night things got worse.  I could drive okay during the day, but driving at night was impossible. And that’s when I started to panic.  I decided that I had damaged my cornea and that I was going blind.  Why my cornea?  Because I had heard of a cornea and figured I had damaged something important. The next day I called my eye doctor and he was able to see me that day.

I think it’s left over from my principal’s office in elementary school, but I felt like I was in trouble and was about to get a scolding. Or worse.  Since I was there for a possible eye damage issue and not for corrective lens, he skipped all the Snellen chart stuff and immediately did the examination. He pulled  the large machine around to my face and I placed my chin in the chassis. My pulse was slightly up as I was preparing for the worst. He pulled that vertical fluorescent light from one side of my right eye to the other. Then he repeated the procedure with the left.  I was predicting cornea damage, for sure.  He turned off the light and swung the machine back out of the way.  I held my breath as he said, “Your eyes are fine.  You didn't damage your eyes. You have cataracts and I can fix that.”  “Do you mean my eye issues are just a coincidence?”  And he said, “Yes, that’s correct.” 

A few months later the cataract surgery on both eyes went without a hitch.  Since I opted for the standard lens, I still need reading glasses, but I see 20/20 for distance. Since I had trouble keeping up with reading glasses, I had glasses made with reading power in the bottom and no power in the top.  And I wear them all the time. When I drive, I take them off and wear sunglasses just like someone with “normal vision". At night, headlights are their normal size.  I'm very grateful that there is nothing wrong with my cornea or any other part of my eyeball. 

Since then I have never failed to wear protective eye wear when handling pesticides or dangerous equipment. I am also learning to imagine the best in every situation instead of imagining the worst.  It’s just as easy  to imagine a good outcome as a bad and my quality of life is so much better.

Yesterday when I had to show my driver’s license for identification, I noticed on the back, “Restrictions: B—Corrective lenses required”. So much for those sunglasses.  I guess this means a trip to the DMV. And I fear the worst.