Life depends upon how you look at it.

by
Once again, this is why so much of the paperwork I generate is color coded.
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THIS is how I spent the first 12 years looking at life.
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I memorized O F L C 3 — the 20/20 line on charts, and repeated it by listening to the tired nurse in elementary school ask people to read the same line.   In case you’re wondering, that same letter/number combination was the 20/20 line on eye charts everywhere for decades. 
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In 6th grade, the nurse asked me to read the line above the one I knew so well. I said “E” because that was the huge letter at the top of the eye chart and remained at the top of the charts for decades. 
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However, the appropriate answer would have been:  “Where is the eye chart.”
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The result: Mom paid for eye exercises at the local optometrists office. 
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It wasn’t enough that I held books only inches away from my face to read.  After complaints from teachers that I was borrowing glasses from other people to read the chalkboard, I finally received my first pair of glasses in 7th grade.
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That solved the problem of seeing the chalk board.  Discovering the dyslexia took a few decades longer.
 
Fast-forward to NOW.
 
I’m getting a new pair of glasses soon. Insurance paid for the exam, which can’t be done using a back-lit chart — due to my extreme light sensitivity — so my optometrist has to be innovative.  It takes over an hour to find the right prescription.  He holds the individual lenses up to my present glasses  — but that’s not the end of it.  
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When you have a strong astigmatism and prisms in the lenses, it’s not enough to get the best possible prescription:  The important factor is to find how the eyes can work together best that is still tolerable. 
 
I ordered glasses over a week ago and was surprised that the total cost was only $172.  Yesterday, I received a call from my optometrists office.  Their optician apologized for underbilling, but she didn’t know the lab was going to charge me $72 more. 
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It seems there’s been an additional fee levied for people who have a refraction over -4.   The basic lenses I’ll be wearing is around -11.  Then there’s the correction for a strong astigmatism, and a prism to correct one eye that sees slightly above the other and one eye that is a bit off to the side.  Did I mention the special coatings and dark tint due to light sensitivity?  No?
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LasikPlus Vision (lasikplus) on Pinterest
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When you add in double vision it looks something like this:
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6 Causes of Double Vision (Diplopia) or Ghost Images
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Only blurrier, without the -11’s, the prisms, and the astigmatism correction.
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If you knew the herculean efforts that my optometrist has to go through to find the right prescription, he’d get the award for innovation.
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It would be easy to complain bitterly about the way I looked at life as a child.  And yet, I tend to see things in ways that other’s don’t.  In every struggle, there’s a gift, though it’s hard to see at the time.
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I know — that was a really, really bad pun.
Category : Dyslexia, health care
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