the blind shall see.

i have a bad habit. i wear contacts longer than i'm supposed to. always.

as such, i figured my right eyeball was hurting the week before easter due to an aged contact. my one-month contacts were four months old. one weird thing, however, was that no matter how much i turned my contact, the annoyance was always all the way at the top of my eyeball.

normally, when i wear contacts for too long, they get cuts or tears or develop deposits i cannot remove. i typically endure this problem for weeks before i cave and get a new pair. i deal with it by spinning the contact in my eye, which relocates the problem. this time, spinning was not effective.

on easter, i could no longer stand it. i ripped my right contact to shreds during church, and went cross-eyed for a few hours until i could coerce my husband into running to the house to get my glasses. (side note: my glasses prescription is old so it really annoys me to wear my glasses. also, i feel as though i've never woken up for the day when i wear them for more than shuffling to the shower in the morning or reading before bed at night.)

i got a new pair on monday and all was well. my right eye felt better and things were good.

for a week.

this monday (as in two days ago), my left eye started hurting in the same spot, way at the very top. by tuesday, it was unbearable. way worse than the right eye ever was. i couldn't open it and it hurt even when i removed the contact.

i called the eye doctor and they got me in.

after several bright lights and some yellow highlighter drops (creepy), it has been determined that i have cuts on both of my corneas.

apparently, when i had my last exam in november, the doctor noted that there was a faint indentation from my contact at the top of my eyeball. because of this, he prescribed some lenses that are supposed to allow more oxygen to the eye. incidentally, these lenses are thicker than others. combined with the fact that i have a fairly high prescription (read: i'm blind), the contacts i was wearing were pretty substantial.

in addition to that, i was told i have "tight eyelids." i had never heard of such a thing before yesterday.

thick lenses + tight eyelids = contacts that CUT YOUR CORNEA.

scary. and rare, they say.

AND the doctor told me that if my prescription continues to go up (it will), it's likely that contacts will eventually be intolerable.

lasik, here i come. as soon as i have thousands of dollars to pay for you.

needless to say, i'm wearing my glasses. and i have antibiotic/steroid drops to use for four days. i go back after two contact-less weeks for a checkup.

weirdest.thing.ever.

me in my specs, cell phone photo style.

(my hair looks weird in the back. like there isn't any. like i have a reverse mullet. ew.)

(lenses with the proper prescription are being ordered. fo sho.)

(won't it be cool, in heaven, when our eyes (and everything else) are perfect!?)