I Thought I Went Blind, But Now I Can See

I recently read Everyday Wonder by Sophie Howarth, which I highly recommend. It's a delightful little book filled with poetry, photography, and creative practices that encourage you to engage in wonder. As Howarth says, "Wonder, it turns out, is not an inherent quality of things in the world but an attitude of mind."

There is no school today, so I'm taking it slow this morning: reading on the couch, sipping my coffee, writing this blog post. And, I chose to do Howarth's practice from the book called "What's Working Well." She writes that so often we are focused on the complaints that we have with our body--what's hurting or what we want to change--that we fail to notice everything that is working as it should. 

I took some deep breaths and started with my toes, giving gratitude to all the bones, muscles, and organs along the way that are working well in this 46 year old body. But when I got to my face, I felt extra gratitude for my eyes because just a few short weeks ago I thought I was going blind.

And I don't mean gradually going blind. I'm talking I woke up from a nap and no longer could read anything that was in front of my face.

Let me back up. I was on a trip to Hilton Head with a bunch of my girlfriends (a delightful tradition) and I had just woken up from a nap after lounging by the pool (I think everyone should get away with their friends to read, eat, and hang out by water). I had set an alarm on my phone, but when I went to shut it off, I realized that I could not read my phone screen: it was completely blurry!

I chalked it up to grogginess from a really good nap. But then I couldn't read my book. Or the menu at dinner. 

I was starting to freak out--my eyes had been fine before this nap! I have glasses with a light prescription, but I hadn't worn them since...last May?? In fact, my eyes were so good that on the flight to Hilton Head when they turned the aisle lights off, I could still read my book. In the dark!

However, I was optimistic. I thought that I probably just needed a good night's sleep, and that when I woke up the next morning, my eyes would be back to normal.

Wrong!

The next morning, I needed to do some work on my computer, but I couldn't read the screen! Or the text with the login code for my Ohio State email! 

In a panic, I drove to the nearest Harris Teeter (don't worry--I was not in danger! I could see in the distance, just not in front of my face!) and went straight to the kiosk full of cheater glasses. I grabbed a bottle of shampoo and tried every strength of the glasses to see if I could read the small print of ingredients on the back. I got all the way to the max strength--3x magnification! It still wasn't completely clear, but I bought them anyway. What choice did I have??

Later that afternoon, I was mindlessly running my fingers through my hair when I felt the patch that was behind my ear. When planning for the trip, I thought that I should wear one of Margaret's motion sickness patches because I thought that we might be going on a boat. Could that be the culprit for my loss of vision?!

After some googling, it turns out that, yes, it was the patch! A side effect is blurred vision because the medicine in the patch is the same thing that the eye doctor uses to dilate your eyes! No wonder I couldn't see--I was walking around with extremely dilated eyes! (This also explained why I could read in the dark on the plane, I suppose.)

I immediately removed the patch, but it took a full two days before I felt like my eyes were back to normal. I actually had an eye doctor appointment this past week, and my eye doctor told me that those patches are 4x stronger than what she would use to dilate my eyes in the office! This was so strange to me because Margaret uses these all the time and she has never had this side effect. According to my eye doctor, children's eye muscles are much stronger so it takes a lot to get their eyes dilated.

So, it turns out that my eyes are just too old for these patches. I also shouldn't have used someone else's prescription anyway. And we didn't even end up going on a boat, so I went blind for nothing.

However, I am grateful for my working eyes. My sense of sight gives me so much delight and I really shouldn't take it for granted.

Also, here is some proof that I did have a great time on this trip and that I didn't spend the entire time fretting about how I was going to have to retire from my job and be placed in a nursing home due to my ocular decline: