Vision
Not being able to see is terrifying.
When I took the model mugging self-defense class in Fairbanks (then helped teach two more), the first thing they did was make me take off my glasses and respond to the attacks blind. It wasn’t bad once you were in close and it was clear that someone was trying to hurt you, since vision isn’t really key at that point anyways. The worst part was the waiting, knowing that something was going to happen and your response to it would be clouded by your cloudy vision. The muggers, who were all very nice men with compulsions to help women be safe, assured me that if I am ever attacked outside of the class, my glasses will disappear in the chaos. I believed them, and think that it (instead of the Aikido class I cited) was probably what made me get the ear-pieces on my glasses adjusted to stay on even when I do a somersault.
Several years ago I read about another case where vision mattered, and this tale continues to haunt me. In John McPhee’s _Coming Into the Country_, he chronicles a WWII-era fighter plane which went down on a training mission over the center of Alaska. One man survived, and it was theorized that the reason a comrade did not was because he had lost his glasses in the hurry to parachute free of the burning plane, and froze to death since he couldn’t see to navigate, find shelter, or collect food.
When I popped up snorkeling at Christmas and had to shout for my party to find me, since I was never going to find them, I got nervous.
Last night, not being able to see as I heard someone crash around outside my tent was chilling.
Knowing that if I lose a contact I won’t be able to drive or read is discomfiting.
I have atrocious vision - it is legally blind before correction. My contact strengths, for those of you with experience in this arena, are +5.5 and + 6.0. Uncorrected my vision is something like 20/500.
In the past I have gone to field camps with spare glasses carefully squirreled into my backpack. I got careless this time between moving and being on the road system, and am regretting it.
I wear my glasses in the shower. I wear them in the ocean and in the swimming pool (unless I am swimming laps). I take them off only to go to bed, and then I have to know where they are so I can blindly reach for them when the occasion arises. If I knock them off my bedside table in the night (reaching for a drink of water), I have to turn on the light and go digging for them that very moment - waking up to find them gone is just too depressing. They are a part of me, but I am getting tired of being dependent on a prop which could disappear and leave me helpless.
I have looked at Lasik or the other vision correction surgeries several times, with the idea that I would probably do it someday when I had more money and the long-term effects of the surgery were better known. I am a little squicked out by the idea since losing my vision in a surgical mishap echoes my childhood fear that someday my declining vision would leave me blind, but I think the technology is actually pretty good now. And I have some money, from my house sale. It may be time to move forward on this, and free myself of the dread of someday trying to navigate through the wilderness sans glasses and dying within a hundred yards of something which could have saved me.
When I took the model mugging self-defense class in Fairbanks (then helped teach two more), the first thing they did was make me take off my glasses and respond to the attacks blind. It wasn’t bad once you were in close and it was clear that someone was trying to hurt you, since vision isn’t really key at that point anyways. The worst part was the waiting, knowing that something was going to happen and your response to it would be clouded by your cloudy vision. The muggers, who were all very nice men with compulsions to help women be safe, assured me that if I am ever attacked outside of the class, my glasses will disappear in the chaos. I believed them, and think that it (instead of the Aikido class I cited) was probably what made me get the ear-pieces on my glasses adjusted to stay on even when I do a somersault.
Several years ago I read about another case where vision mattered, and this tale continues to haunt me. In John McPhee’s _Coming Into the Country_, he chronicles a WWII-era fighter plane which went down on a training mission over the center of Alaska. One man survived, and it was theorized that the reason a comrade did not was because he had lost his glasses in the hurry to parachute free of the burning plane, and froze to death since he couldn’t see to navigate, find shelter, or collect food.
When I popped up snorkeling at Christmas and had to shout for my party to find me, since I was never going to find them, I got nervous.
Last night, not being able to see as I heard someone crash around outside my tent was chilling.
Knowing that if I lose a contact I won’t be able to drive or read is discomfiting.
I have atrocious vision - it is legally blind before correction. My contact strengths, for those of you with experience in this arena, are +5.5 and + 6.0. Uncorrected my vision is something like 20/500.
In the past I have gone to field camps with spare glasses carefully squirreled into my backpack. I got careless this time between moving and being on the road system, and am regretting it.
I wear my glasses in the shower. I wear them in the ocean and in the swimming pool (unless I am swimming laps). I take them off only to go to bed, and then I have to know where they are so I can blindly reach for them when the occasion arises. If I knock them off my bedside table in the night (reaching for a drink of water), I have to turn on the light and go digging for them that very moment - waking up to find them gone is just too depressing. They are a part of me, but I am getting tired of being dependent on a prop which could disappear and leave me helpless.
I have looked at Lasik or the other vision correction surgeries several times, with the idea that I would probably do it someday when I had more money and the long-term effects of the surgery were better known. I am a little squicked out by the idea since losing my vision in a surgical mishap echoes my childhood fear that someday my declining vision would leave me blind, but I think the technology is actually pretty good now. And I have some money, from my house sale. It may be time to move forward on this, and free myself of the dread of someday trying to navigate through the wilderness sans glasses and dying within a hundred yards of something which could have saved me.