I went to the eye doctor on Monday, and I'm sorry to report that my eyesight has not improved since my last visit. In fact, it has gotten a little worse. As I sat in the waiting room, I saw a little girl with her mother also waiting, and it made me remember the sighted years...
When I was 5, my mom took me to our local optometrist to have my vision checked. After all, my dad was legally blind in three states and my siblings, ages 8 and 11, were already sporting spectacles on a full time basis. I can still remember the smell of disinfectant and listerine in the doctor's office, and the rows and rows of glasses. I sat next to my mother, waiting for the receptionist to call my name. When it was my turn, I patted my mom on the shoulder and said, "I've got this, Mom." (I was a tough kid. In my mind, I wasn't a baby anymore. I was in kindergarten.)
I followed the tall, thin woman back through a winding hallway until we got to a room with a masssive chair in the middle of it and a giant picture of an eyeball hanging on the wall across from that. I gulped. Maybe I'd been too hasty when I had decided to leave Mom back in the waiting room...
"And who have we here?" I turned around and came face to face with Dr. Gailmark. I introduced myself and he showed me where to sit (I was secretly thrilled that I got to sit in the gigantic spaceship chair I mentioned earlier).
I was eager to get started. I could not WAIT to get glasses. (I was already picturing myself taking them off during circle time and casually wiping them clean with my shirt before I replaced them on my face. I was thinking of getting purple, but I remember thinking that I might have to settle for pink because I had taken a quick peek at the selection and I hadn't seen any purple glasses...)
"Ok, can you tell me what you see up on the wall there, sweatheart?" I craned my neck, pretending like I was really trying to see the pictures and the letters. "Hmm." I squinted my eyes (I had seen my brother do this when he tried to watch the tv without his glasses). "Nope. Not a thing."
Ten minutes later, the eye doctor walked out to give my mother the news. "Well, based on the results, Erin needs glasses." (I immediately starting looking more diligently for those purple frames.) My mother sighed. The doctor wasn't finished. "But...I have a hunch that she may have been faking it." My mother raised her eyebrows. "If these results were accurate, I'd expect her to be having much more trouble." He lowered his voice. "She um...couldn't 'see' the big E on the eye chart." They both started laughing. "We can give her a fake pair of glasses if you'd like." My mom regarded him like he had just told her that she could set money on fire if the house got too cold.
Needless to say, I didn't get my purple glasses that day....but two years later, all of my wildest dreams came true. I guess whoever said, "Be careful what you wish for" ended up blind like me...
My vision gets a little blurrier each year...and each year, when I go in for my checkup, I keep expecting the eye doctor to look at me and say, "Well, Erin, I'm afraid your contact and glasses days are behind you, but I can give you this handy, dandy white cane here..."
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