I’m nearly blind without glasses or contacts. When I wake up in the morning, I can make out the digits on my alarm clock, only because I bought a clock with very large digits. I don’t actually known what my vision is without contacts, but I’m guessing it’s somewhere in the single digits over 20.
Normally this isn’t a problem, I’ve been living this way for years and am thankful every day for the wonder that is corrective lenses. Occasionally though things happen, which make me really consider looking into Lasik.
Take this morning for instance. I was driving down 35W on the way to work. Thankfully, it was a normal day and it was bumper-to-bumper stop and barely move traffic. I was enjoying some morning music, when suddenly I blinked and my left contact fell out of my eye. Now this isn’t something that normally happens, I think it’s a sign I need to lay off the fun beverages for a while and drink more water. But when you are in traffic and you are suddenly unable to see clearly out of one eye it creates a minor problem. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that THERE WAS NOWHERE TO PULL OFF THE ROAD.
Now, I didn’t want to stop in the middle of the lane and put my contact back in, but I also needed to get it back in pronto so it didn’t dry up. Otherwise, I was going to be driving down Cedar Avenue with either no depth perception or half my vision mostly worthless. Somehow stopping in the middle of the lane actually seemed the safer bet.
Thankfully, I was at a point in the construction where a shoulder miraculously appeared and I was able to safely leave the road and get my vision back. However, I think I’m going to purchase a travel bottle of saline for my backpack so if something like this happens again I’m not in quite such a panic. At least then, I have more time to find a safe place to leave the road before things reach a point of no return.
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No good, no good! Plus, that contact likely has sand, salt, dirt, or a mix on it and would be extremely painful to put back in. Ugh!
Thankfully, I managed to realize what was happening and caught it in my hand. Still didn’t feel good going back in, but better than it would have had it fallen on my shirt or somewhere on my car.
Now you know why I stick with glasses. :-)
I’ve had similar things happen to me. Unfortunately, my eyes are too bad to do Lasik at all.
I challenge you to a blind-off!
Fun beverages…lol darn them for drying our eyes up! Ditto on the blindness home front. Good thinking on a spare bottle of solution!
I can totally relate! I actually blinked out a contact during a jr. high dance once. They had to flip the lights on and everyone was helping me look for it on the floor. Talk about a way to kill the mood! :/ I’m glad you survived and have a saline plan!
I’ve had that happen. I ended up putting the contact in my mouth to keep it wet. Hey – it worked until I could put it back in.
Yeah, putting it in my mouth crossed my mind, and I would have done it had I not come to that shoulder.