As I mentioned yesterday, I was fitted for prescription glasses for the first time last weekend. What I didn’t post is how uneasy the process made me feel.
For those of you (like the old me) with perfect vision, you might be shocked to learn how much of a subjective process an eye exam is. Every person I have talked to with glasses has agreed with me that getting a new prescription seems more like a black art than a medical diagnose. I prefer hard quantitative data like “you have x# of blood cells per unit in your urine”. Eye exams are the exact opposite.
After the doctor had asked me “what looks better? this, or this?” four times, I was starting to doubt myself. Was I really going to be solely responsible for deciding my own diagnosis?
The fear was compounded because two minutes older I had been told for the first time that my vision was not perfect. I was seriously doubting my ability to see correctly and now I was having to rely on my correct seeing ability to diagnose myself? There has to be a better way.
I look forward to the day that optometrists can give me a shot and xray my eyes to tell in no uncertain terms which glasses are going to give me the best results. Until then I am going to have to learn to trust my vision even though my vision has proven to be untrustworthy.
