Quest for the True North

Contacts or eyeglasses?

Filed under personal stories

I am half blind these days. After my left contact lens was torn last month while I was trying to remove it, a torn piece “got lost” in my eye, and the doctor told me to stop wearing contact lenses for awhile. She said it was to avoid possible infection, even though a test showed hours of poking didn’t scratch my cornea.

I’ve slept with my lenses on before, and I’ve “lost” lenses in my eye, but I had always solved that little problem on my own. I went to a doctor that one time because I couldn’t get the lost piece out after hours of trying, and I didn’t know where it was. I could only feel it whenever I blinked.

To make the long story short, I was able to remove the torn piece after the medical interns at the hospital had fun poking at my eye flipping my eyelids. They weren’t very useful. I had to pay an emergency room fee of P500 and a temperature check fee (what on earth is that?!) of P10 even though I was only there for 15 minutes.

Since then I’ve been thinking whether I should continue wearing lenses or switch back to eyeglasses. I’ve worn glasses on and off since I was 13. I started wearing contact lenses last year, after which my eye grade shot up from 125 to 350. Meh.

I guess it is because I also started working at about the same time, and my job requires me to sit in front of the computer for long hours. Eyeglasses provide better protection from computer radiation than contact lenses.

I know that, alright. Actually, an optometrist discouraged me from getting contact lenses because of the nature of my job, but I went ahead and bought a pair anyway.  Eyeglasses make me look like a high school principal. Besides, eyeglasses are inconvenient. You can’t move freely. You can’t jump and cartwheel anytime you want to.

So, I thought I could keep on wearing contacts if I can get something bright, something that would stand out against the white of my eye. You know, so that the lens won’t “get lost.” Bright red or green contact lenses perhaps?

Colored contact lenses last only three months, so that means I would be spending more on my vision. But whattheheck, that’s much better than looking like a high school principal. This is not to say, of course, that those who wear glasses look old or nerdy. I just don’t look good in glasses, period.

I am itching to get a new eyepiece. I am already kissing the monitor as I write this.