Alien Eyes

On Thursday this week I had an eye appointment with my new Optometrist here in Payson. After going through all the normal eye screening tests Dr. Rowley recommended that I have my eyes dilated in order to give him a more accurate reading of any changes to my eye sight (since I had not been into an eye doctor in over 4 years and had been using the same pair of glasses since High school). I agreed never having had the joyful experience of having my eyes dilated but more importantly not knowing any better. In my head, I thought that he would just dilate my eyes by putting me in a dark room or something, then look at them, do some test and that would be it. I would go home the way I had come in. My eyes would work normally and he would have the information he needed to correctly determine my new eye prescription. What I didn’t understand (and what he didn’t tell me) is that having your eyes dilated is no SHORT or simple process. Things I wish had been told before I okay-ed the test.

So how did it work then you ask? Well, first Dr. Rowley put two different kinds of eye drops in my eyes. THEN (after the fact) he tells me that it takes about 15 minutes to work and that I need to wait in the waiting room AGAIN and that I probably will not be able to see much once they are fully dilated. What? Hello, did you not recall that I walked in with 3 boys all of whom are 4 and under and need constant supervision and need to be driven home after this lovely little appointment, and will also need to be looked after at home? I was a bit irked not having been told of the repercussions BEFORE I okay-ed the dilation, so that I could have possibly rescheduled it for a day when Adam could drive me home and help with the kids, but I realized there wasn’t much I could do about it now and just let it go.

So I waited, not 15 minutes but more like 40, with three squirming eager to get home boys before finally being taken back to finish the dilation test. Dr. Rowley does the check on my eyes and looks at my old glasses and tells me that he thinks my old prescription is over prescribed and that my eyes have been straining all these years more than they should because my prescription is too high. Really? There is such a thing as seeing too clearly? I was totally confused. Couldn’t it just be that maybe my eyes have changed since my prescription over 10 years ago? But then again, what would I know? In an effort to help me understand he gave me some weird analogy about an air conditioner which still didn’t clear things up for me, but like a good girl, I just decided to trust the Doctor since he was the one that went to Optometry school and probably knew what he was talking about.

So then he suggests that I get all these funky new cool things to my lenses and takes me to the front desk where the receptionist guy can tell me what it will all cost and what my insurance covers. And hey guess what? its only like $500 dollars AFTER my insurance pays their part. What the? Really? So then I sweetly asked, “how much would it cost just to get the glasses with my new prescription without all the features?” Oh, well that is just $25. Yeah, I think I’ll go that route thank you very muchy. 🙂 So the receptionist guy takes me over to the area where all the “cheap frames are” and they ALL just happen to be priced at EXACTLY what my insurance covers funny enough, but there is only one problem….I can’t hardly see them! So I asked the receptionist guy how long until the blurred vision goes away and he confers with the Optometrist. “Oh it should go away soon, probably within 24 hours, but for some people it takes 3 days, so don’t worry if it takes that long!”

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? I couldn’t understand for the life of me how this wasn’t information that the Doctor felt was necessary to tell me BEFOREHAND? To allow me to make an informed decision on whether having my eyes dilated right then worked with my schedule the next three days. I mean he had asked during my eye screening test earlier if I had ever had my eyes dilated before, and I had responded in the negative. Did he really not think that something as important as possibly losing my eyesight for 3 DAYS was something that he MIGHT want to ask me about? To make sure I didn’t have to drive across country with my family, or use the computer to write a huge paper for MBA school? I was just flabbergasted. I just couldn’t see how that wouldn’t be important information to pass along to a patient.

I ended up deciding to just head home since I couldn’t even see the frames I was supposed to be choosing. However, driving home was quite the challenge and I was just praying that I would make it home without running into anyone. It wasn’t so much that everything was blurry as was the fact that my eyes hurt every time I opened them because of the sunlight. So I was squinting the entire way home even behind my black shades. I ended up having to wear sunglasses all that day (my appointment was at 9 am) as well as the next day because the dilation affected my eyes in such a way that any bright sunlight was really painful to them. I also couldn’t read or see anything up close for those days too because of the blurred vision. Even walking around my house was difficult as I often felt dizzy with my eyes feeling so crazy.

The boys and I survived though and eventually my eyes started slowly de-dilating. (is that a word?) The funniest part though is when I looked into the mirror for the first time later that afternoon. I had been home for several hours and decided to check my eyes out to see how dilated they were. When I looked into the mirror I almost scared myself. It didn’t even look like me. It was if an alien were looking back at me. My eyes were almost completely black with only the slightest little line of brown on the outside. It was totally crazy looking. Even Adam was freaked out when he got home from work that evening and just sat and stared at me all through dinner with a little funny grin on his face. It certainly was a great conversational piece.

That evening (probably 12-14 hours after my eyes were dilated) I had Adam take a picture of my eyes. The picture he took is below, and although it does show my eyes dilated, its not a true representation of how they were right after the fact. Pretty crazy stuff though.

So anyway, it ended up being quite the crazy day but one I think one I will never forget! 🙂