I had my overdue contact eye exam on December 16th and have been wearing daily disposable contacts since then. About a week after my appointment, I had to go back into the Eye Care center to get my contact prescription adjusted with a contact lens technician because my prescription proved to be a little too high and was giving me a headache. My prescription changed from an 8 to a 7 meaning that I am NOT totally blind but just MOSTLY blind.
I will say that having daily disposable contacts has taken some time to get used to. First of all, this is the first time I have worn contacts that are not tinted blue because they are so disposable, they don’t need to be. In addition, it is the weirdest thing to just throw them out at the end of the day. That part is very hard to get used to and it feels so wasteful. At the end of the day, after I brush my teeth, I take one square of toilet paper and place it in my right hand. I take my contact out and place it on the toilet paper square. Once I have both contacts there, I fold the square up and then throw it away. I always think of this cartoon that I saw when I was a child:
My Mom laughs at me and tells me that I don’t need to be so careful because I am just going to throw them away. I tell her that I have worn contacts for 26 years and that old habits die hard. I am so used to taking great care of my contacts for so long that and feels so foreign and wrong to just throw my contacts out at the end of the day. The other day, after I took one contact out and carefully placed it into the square of toilet paper, my Mom grabbed it up and ripped it in half! She laughed as I had a mini stroke.
Another thing that has taken some time to get used to is having to open a new package every day for each contact. I no longer store them overnight but I have to peel the foil wrapping off of a brand new package every day.
Because I am so blind as I am trying to open the package, I have to hold it close to my face. I pull the foil wrapper away from the saline solution that holds the contact and because it is so close to my face, I get squirted with that solution every single day! Today was no different! It is usually on my left cheek or the left side of my upper lip. A few times, it has been my nose. It startles me each time and makes me laugh a little bit because although I am not being squirted in my eye, I am reminded of this scene in Cinderella, a movie that I watched over one million times as a child:
Each time the solution hits my face, I constantly see this scene! I exchanged my 30 day supply of contacts there that were an 8 strength and ordered a 7 strength and I’m waiting for them to arrive at my house. After my next SSI check, I will need to look into ordering contacts for me somewhere it is cheaper because a wise man once told me that money does not grow on trees and it does not come out of the machines in the wall like I asserted! That wiseman was my Dad.