oh say can you see

Rounding out the health care professionals in my life is the optometrist. I think the last eye exam I had was at least 12 years ago. I don't wear glasses, as far as I can tell I could still see well, so I never went. But nowadays, the optometrist looks for more than just eye stuff they look for glaucoma, high blood pressure, diabetes and a whole slew of other things that they can only look for when they say, "look into my eyes."

Co-workers have given the Eye Clinic on campus rave reviews, so I decided to go there. Since it's a teaching clinic, they put you through all the tests. For instance, even though my vision was 20/15, they still went through the string of lens to see if they could improve my vision. I might have been able to see the 20/10 line, but by then I think I was getting fatigued from all the focusing. They check the front, the back, the nerve, your peripheral vision. It takes about an hour to go through it all.

Of course they put the drops in. No one told me those things sting. But I discovered I had very quick blink reflexes as my eyes naturally wanted to avoid repeating of the stinging sensation.

At the end they said I was 20/15 with slight far-sightedness. And that they notice a touch of UV damage that at this point doesn't affect my vision, but that I should wear sunglasses. Which I probably should with all these outdoor classes (kali, water excercise), but I've gone through the gambit of sunglasses that I wear for a bit then not because they were uncomfortable. So, since I was there I headed to the eye care center, where each person has a personal escort, talk about service!

I managed to find a pair of Oakleys with a medium red to black shading and a nice shape that wrapped around a bit more to give a better peripheral view. I had gone through alot of junk glasses and had a better sense of what I should be looking for. But they still didn't fit right, a bit tight at the temples, the nose pads didn't rest right on my very Asian nose bridge. Since they're interns and students, they really want to make the customer happy and since they're from Cal, they're a bunch of perfectionists at it too, which combines into excellent service. She went back and must have tweaked it a good 5-6 times until they fit just right. I had never had a pair of glasses that didn't sit on my cheeks thus requiring me to clean the lens every few minutes. In the end, I had a pair of sunglasses that didn't pinch my sinuses nor my temples, that didn't slide down my nose or rest on my cheeks, and on top of that were 20% off. Sweet!

[OK, here's an instant money maker for you, a sunglass design that fits the Asian nose structure.]

We'll see how well they fair through kali and water excercise class. For now, I'm just going to enjoy having a pair of sunglasses that fit well.