Blursday Thursday

I'm telling you, once you turn twenty-*cough* everything just starts falling apart. Thursday was proof of that for me.

I got to work early because I had an eye doctor appointment at 8:30. I was walking from my office over to the Eye Center and wearing my super cute Jack Rogers. Then I took a step and thought, wow this feels weird, why is the tile floor getting so.close.so.fast? Because I'm falling, that's why. Well, not completely, I did a sort of split/lunge/catch-myself-with-my-hand sort of trick. As I try to recover, I do a quick inventory:

Something slippery on the floor that I obviously didn't see and should sue Duke for? Check.
Plenty of people around to see me and laugh behind my back? Check.
Killer knee injury because I landed on it? Check.

Now, normally when you begin to slip like that, your heel moves away from you and you realize you are about to fall, therefore quickly correcting the problem with a balance check. Alas, I am getting old, and apparently my balance is the first to go. Awesome.

Anywho, I made it to the eye doctor and was secretly hoping they would forget about that whole dilating my eyes thing. I've been going to the eye doctor since the 4th grade, but recently began going to the Eye Center at Duke since I work over here and it is a much more comprehensive exam than I ever had before. Two years ago was the first time I went, and also the first time I had my eyes dilated. It was not a pleasant experience, and going semi-blind for 4 hours is not my idea of good times. Needless to say I was not looking forward to it. Before I had to worry about that, she put these lovely yellow drops in my eyes (read:burning yellow death drops) to check the pressure in my eyes. Can't we just assume the pressure is ok as long as my eyes are still firmly in place in their sockets? If the pressure is too high, and they pop out, I'll let you know, ok? It was worth a try. So she tells me I might feel a little push as I see this gun looking thing coming straight towards my eye. Yes, I feel a "little push" because you are pushing on my eyeball. Then she very nonchalantly tells me it's time for my dilation drops. Dang it! I was about to make a break for it but I was still burning from the yellow death drops and couldn't quite orient to my surroundings (read: where's the door?). Ok FINE. Dilate away. Now I get to sit and slowly watch my vision deteriorate before my very eyes (ha! get it?!).

After reading my ABCs and other such exams (my favorite being the "sorry-this-may-be-a-little-bright" test, where she wants me to look past her ear while shining a solar flare into my eye. No prob doc. Is blinking allowed?) she determines that my distance vision has gotten worse. Which explains why my glasses don't help my headaches, because they are for reading and up close. Great. First my balance, and now my vision. What next? Can't wait to see what happens in my 30s. So it's either glasses full time or contacts, and I opt for contacts (get it? opt? like opthalmology?! it's totally matchy matchy! Ok I'll stop). She puts them in and I go for my field vision test (in the meantime I'm texting mom to tell her I'm getting contacts, but can't see my phone at all because my eyes are very dilated. It made for an interesting text). Now this field vision test was hard for me. Not because I couldn't see (which was part of it, ha), but because she called it a test I'm like all in competition mode now. I'm going to ace it! Gimme that clicker! No flash of light will get past me! I'm so going to conquer this video game! Er, vision test! Woo!

Then it's time to teach me how to take my contacts in and out. And let me just say that I cannot even give myself eye drops. My version of touching my eye is putting on eyeliner, so I knew this would be tough. And, coming straight off the vision test, I was still in competition mode and was all about acing this tutorial. I'm going to be the fastest student ever! Putting my finger in my eye? Psssh! No problem!

Ok, problem. It took me 30 minutes to take each one out and put it back in. Ri-dic-u-lous. And frustrated isn't the word for it. I was so trying to keep my cool because nice eye teacher lady was this.close.watching.me and I wanted her to see that I was a model student. I don't think she bought it because she told me to take a break because I was getting frustrated. Dang it. So now I have contacts, and I'm supposed to wear them for the next 3 weeks and see how they do. Then I'm going back for more tests (yay! not.) and to get a full prescription if they are working. Can't wait! (sarcasm anyone?)

Update: that evening I decided to practice putting them in and taking them out, so that in the morning I would not have that much trouble. I thought surely after my poor showing at the tutorial I would completely redeem myself (because I am a complete rockstar like that) and have no trouble putting them in. 45 minutes, severe cussing, rinsing them off because I dropped them 3 times, and no contacts in my eyes later, I gave up and went to bed. This morning it only took me 15 minutes to get them in, so I feel I'm making stellar progress. Stay tuned.