I was just 5 years old, starting Kindergarten, when I got my first pair of glasses.  Really, I don’t remember life without glasses.  I don’t know how my parents realized I needed glass. Maybe it was a Kindergarten screening or a pediatrician’s visit.   But I do vaguely remember picking out my first pair—blue cat eye. 

It was 1969 and I thought my new glasses were the height of fashion. Every year I chose a new pair.  The next few years my glasses were brown. Then I had a very fashionable wire frame pair in 4^th grade.  For several years I was the only one in my class with glasses.  But, every year, as I grew taller my eyes got noticeably worse and by 7^th grade my glasses were very thick.

Fortunately by the mid-70’s soft contacts were available and a close family friend fitted my sister and I with our first pair of lenses.  That changed my life.  It took me a long time to get use to putting them in my eyes but I persisted—I wanted to be free of glasses and look like every other teenager.  In those early days of contacts, you got one very expensive pair that you kept for a whole year, careful not to lose one because they were hard to replace.  More horrifying, you boiled your contacts nightly and made your own saline solution with little salt pills dissolved in distilled water.  It all seems unsanitary now but I was grateful to be able to see better in contacts. 

Fast forward almost 50 years and my contacts were still my constant companions.  Fortunately there are disposable contacts and much better and safer solutions but the routine of morning and evening care was part of my daily life.  In the evening, I put on my very thick coke bottle glasses.  I was too embarrassed of them to be seen in public in my very unfashionable glasses—chosen only to accommodate the lenses. My very bad eyesight was a burden I carried.  Even the doctor would comment on how rarely he saw my strong prescription (-13). There was no solution available as I wasn’t a good candidate for Lasik correction. I was just lucky I wore contacts well and in more recent years reading glasses and contacts.  Sniff.. Sniff… Sigh… This was my life forever and ever.  Until it wasn’t…..

In March during a routine eye exam, it was determined I had cataracts that were getting bad enough that I was barely legal to drive.  I was had been noticing a lot of glare but I was use to not seeing so well, that was nothing new. And besides, I thought I was too young to possibly need cataract surgery.  So, off I went to the retina specialist to sign off on surgery and then on to the Ophthalmologist to talk surgery.  I was scheduled for surgery 6 weeks later but then I got a gift I didn’t realize was possible—the surgeon could fix my vision and in a few short weeks I would be free of contacts and thick glasses forever.  I could have cried right then and there.  I had carried this burden for so many years. Really, a burden I didn’t realize I had because there was no solution.   I counted down the days to surgery.

My surgeon did say it would be tricky because of my extreme prescription but he felt he could get me close to 20/20 vision. I had to get the upgraded lenses but that was a small matter to me.  Quickly the first surgery was over and then I had an awkward week with one eye corrected but dilated and one eye with a contact.    I just rested and watched Olympics in my weird vision state and was glad it was a dark and rainy week.   Then the second eye changed everything.  I could see better than I could with contacts.  It was a miracle.   I still need readers, but I ceremoniously threw away my last few contacts, cases, and solutions. I wiped away the last salty mess on the bathroom counter and put my thick glasses in a memory box so that I could always have proof on how bad my vision was for over 55 years.

After a few weeks I stopped reaching for my glasses when I woke up. It took a while to resist the need to take out my now non-existent contacts.  But I’m free of all those old routines.  I still have a dozen reading glasses staged around the house and my vision is still a bit compromised by floaters in my eyes but I can live with all of this now that I’m free from glasses.  It all made me think about the burdens we all carry; physical, mental and emotional.  I didn’t realize how good it would be to lay down one burden.  To have one problem fixed.  I will be forever grateful to modern medicine for my new eyesight, it is truly a miracle to see our beautiful world.