Lasik (Part 4), or The Baggage from My Past

I live in a place with the highst rate of myopia in the world. Myo-what? That's the medical term for short-sightedness. Most of my friends will agree with me that it is very annoying to have a pair of spectacles perching on your nose, without which you'd have to grope carefully in order not to trip over things while walking. Being myopic is more of a psychological scar than an everyday inconvenience for me. The reason I say this is because of the circumstance that made me short-sighted.

I was born to parents who did not need to wear glasses. My mum is not myopic now although she is beginning to develop long-sightedness due to old age. This condition results in her not being able to see things clearly at a close range. Think of it as the opposite of myopia. But I am digressing.


Photo credit: www.freephoto1.com

After a tempestuous relationship, my parents separated when I was barely learning how to control my piss. Anyway, I was put under the care of my maternal grandmother. Now, as it turns out, my mum was an adopted child so there isn't any blood relation between her and granny. This is an important point, as we shall see later. The other significant thing to note is that my granny's biological sons are all severely myopic.

Effectively, I was put into an environment where short-sightedness was the norm. I was also made to read textbooks over long hours under a dim fluorescent light bulb. The first sign of failing eye-sight appeared when I turned 10 years of age. I found that I couldn't read the service numbers of public buses until they came right up to the bus stop. I remember a funny experience with a friend of mine who also had problems with his eyesight. We had missed a bus because we couldn't read the number until it was too late to flag. Yes, bus drivers were and still are an impatient lot. So we devised a plan. You know how it is with 10-year-old boys, they come up with the most ingenious of plots. My friend stationed himself about 50 metres ahead of the bus stop and he did the number spotting, waving to me when the right bus approached. I then had ample time to flag the bus while he would make a mad dash back to the bus stop.

So that was my first step into the world of myopia. I was definitely coerced into it. I remember the physical abuse that I received if I did not do well in school. One of my uncle even set his own test papers for me on a weekly basis, giving me a good thrashing when I got any mistake. Once he returned from work while I was watching TV. He promptly interrogated me on why I was not studying. I got another beating with the warning to "make sure that you are studying when I return home." All that abuse was witnessed by other members of the household. No one intervened.

There is only so much that a yound child can take before he breaks and does one of two things: run away or allow his will to be broken. For good or bad, I chose to conform to expectations, putting in countless hours of revision and reading. All the while under unsuitable lighting conditions.

My short-sightedness hangs like a ghost from the past, a reminder of the unhappy days and how I was robbed of my birthright. I have no genetic pre-disposition towards myopia but I was forced to abuse my eyes to point of failure.

Now that I'm a father of two beautiful daughters, I pray desperately everyday that they will not have to wear glasses when they start going to school. Because when I put on my glasses every morning, I am reminded of the emotional baggage that flawed care-givers placed on me so many years ago.

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Technorati: myopia, health, lasik

Lasik (Part 3), or The Second Skin

The best non-medical invention that came along, in terms of myopia correction, is the contact lens. They fit on the cornea like a second skin, providing clear vision in the entire field-of-view, unlike spectacles where there's always a blind-zone outside of the frame.


Photo credit: Bryan Tong Minh

I got into the act quite late, having worn my first pair only at 18. This came about after running too many competitive cross-country races stumbling over roots and shrub without the benefit of wearing my 500-degree glasses. The only time I did wear glasses while competing, I ended having them flung off my nose while trying to catch up with the guy in front of me during the last leg.

The trick to wearing contact lenses is to keep them on short and keep them clean. Cleanliness is paramount. It was something that I took for granted and ended up with two bouts of conjunctivitis. Simple rules apply. Always wash hands before handling, never wash lenses with tap water.

As a result of those two bouts of infecton, I could no longer put on contact lenses without getting sore eyes after 2 hours of wearing. And my eyes would ache for a few days after that. So ended my tryst with the contact lens.

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lasik contact lens

Lasik (Part 2), or The Curse of The Snellen Chart

It was in 1984 when I was first pronounced myopic by a government nurse performing routine medical examination on students enrolled in state-run elementary schools. That diagnosis was made through the use of a Snellen chart. There was neither follow-up at a specialized opthalmological facility nor examination by an optometrist. I was simply given a written note of the declared diagnosis and the estimated unaided visual acuity (like 20/60 or some other numbers), with a stern advice to get a pair of glasses if I wanted to continue doing well in class.



My mum, proud as hell that I'd gained the status symbol of a studious boy, promptly took me to an optometry shop in Chinatown, where I was prescribed with a pair of spectacles. I remember they were around 100+ diopters (or "degrees") for each eye.

Looking back, that was about the most arbitrary process I have been medically subjected to. I became a myopic person all because of the Snellen Chart.

And so began my love-hate relationship with the eyeglass. I hate my dependence on them for all the usual reasons. Uncomfortable, slides off with perspiration, gets broken easily etc. There was only one reason for me to love them. They acted as a shield to my inner world. People say the eyes are the windows to the soul. I treated my glasses as a privacy screen. I used them as social camouflage, hiding emotions and ignorance. It is very easy to assume an intellectual, know-it-all air when you wear glasses. Answer this question: who's the geek, Bill or Steve? Must be the glasses giving one of them the geeky image.

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lasik

Lasik (Part 1)

My glasses were nearly cracked while playing tickles with Faith. She's reached the age where every piece of furniture (and dad lying on the sofa) is a mountain to be conquered. Did I mention that she converted my previous pair of spectacles into two monocles?

Wearing glasses is quite an impediment.

The gossip of the day is that one of my ex-classmate is now performing laser surgery for short-sighted patients. It's good to have contacts in such places.

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lasik