eye exams for everyone

Last week before the trip to San Diego, we all went to the eye doctor. When I called to make the appointment for Thomas, the receptionist asked if anyone else in my family needed to be seen. So I put myself on the schedule. When I told Mike he asked me to call and see if they could get him in as well. So, we all went at the same time.

Turns out Thomas does not need glasses! Yeah, those ones he's been wearing for 2 years that we've been fussing at him about wearing? Big waste of time and money. It all started out with his occupational therapist in GA trying some prism goggles on him in therapy one day. He immediately stopped toe-walking. So we made an appointment with the developmental optometrist they recommended. He got glasses with prism in them and a little prescription for farsightedness. The whole prism thing turned out to be a bit of a bust - it definitely wasn't the magic answer we had hoped for toe-walking. Last year when we had his eyes checked, the doctor had him do the chart with his glasses & didn't see any need to change the prescription. Lately, though, we'd been finding Thomas not wanting to wear his glasses & we had to keep after him or we'd find that he'd taken them off in the middle of the day. The doctor we saw last week had him do the chart with and without glasses. Turned out he could see better without the glasses!

Mike had a change in prescription, which we expected. He spent longer than I did picking out frames, which was kind of funny. The people in the office kept having him try on all these outlandish things. Dude, we all know you're going to get the conservative ones, so let's cut to the chase, eh? There was one retro, throw-back to the 50s pair that looked surprisingly good on Mike. He hemmed and hawed about those for a bit, but in the end, went with something really similar to what he already has. Hopefully these frames will hold up a bit better than those.

I went in with the hopes of getting contacts. The last time I had been to the eye doctor, it was a very frustrating experience. I got glasses all fine and dandy, but had really wanted to switch to contacts. The office never seemed to have the right contacts in for a trial and the doctor kept having me try some that weren't quite right and come back. Finally, after about 6 weeks of back and forth, I gave up. I stopped wearing my glasses because I didn't like the way they looked and I could see "good enough" without them. Lately, though, I had been getting frustrated with reading signs on the road and anything that involved reading on the television. I could do it, but I had to really concentrate to get things to come into focus.

Turns out that I barely have any prescription needed at all. But that if it bothers me, I should definitely correct it. Most people who wear glasses or contacts see so badly that getting close to perfect vision is such a tremendous improvement that they're happy with the results. I have close to perfect vision, but "some people just demand perfection". That cracked me up. Really, anyone who knows me would tell you that I'm a 'good enough' kind of gal. Anyway, this guy told me that I'd have a hard time finding contacts that made it perfect, and would probably end up frustrated with all the effort of contacts, so I should probably stick with glasses. Fine, but I had to find some glasses that worked. That had been my biggest frustration - finding glasses I liked that fit my ginormously wide face and didn't get all splayed out at the arms. The people in his office are good, though. They helped me find a couple of options that I actually thought looked good. Don't tell anyone I wear men's frames, though, okay?

So Monday I picked up my new glasses & went out Tuesday for a haircut. The glasses were definitely too hip for my daily ponytail. Whatchya think?