Glasses. Whee.
I was born with two different colored eyes — one brown, one green. Everyone in my family has brown eyes, so it’s not a hereditary thing as much as a “birth defect” (for lack of a better word). I also don’t sweat on one half of my head (the half that the green eye is on). I’ve asked doctors about it and they have no clue as to why that happened. Their best guess is that whatever nerve that tells your head to sweat must be somehow connected to the thing that tells what color to make your eyes. In my case, neither one worked right. The eye thing has never bothered me — in fact, it’s fun to see how few people actually notice. The sweat thing never really bothered me either. The only side effect of that one is dandruff on that half of my head, since that half of my scalp is really dry from no sweat. That, and when I exercise, only half of my face turns red. The other half stays normal.
As it turns out though, there may have been a third birth defect. I’ve always had a pretty big dead spot in the middle of my left eye. Our brains are so amazing that with both eyes, I don’t even notice it. If I cover my left eye (the green one), everything looks normal. If I cover the brown one … look out! Pretty much everything front and center disappears into a big hazy cloud. That was the reason we decided to go get my eyes checked this weekend.
And of course, the eye doctor said what every other eye doctor has always said. “I have no idea.” I asked him if it would get worse over the next five or ten years. His response? “Come back in five or ten years and I’ll tell you.” He was able to tell that there was no problem with the lense and no cataracts or anything like that, so whatever the problem is, it’s within the design of my eyeball. So anyway, after performing some routine eye exams he informed me that my green eye was really far sided, and my brown eye (the good one) was slightly near sided. And thus, the glasses. Unfortunately the glasses do nothing for the “dead” spot. It’s kind of like having engine problems in your car, taking it to a mechanic, and being told you need tires. $300 you have new tires, and yeah you probably needed them, but you still have the engine problem.
Have you ever put someone else’s glasses on and tried to walk around for a few minutes? That’s how I’ve felt the past two days. Looking at a computer screen is slightly better, and things seem a little clearer while driving, but navigating rooms is more difficult. The frames kind of block my peripheral vision so I keep bumping shoulders with people. I’m sure I’ll either get used to them or quit wearing them, one or the other.