senoritafish | New glasses and floaters

I should get my new glasses today; that is, if John remembers to go pick them up. I think they were ready last week. I haven't really been wearing any since Avalon mangled the ones I got last year about a month or two after I got them.

When I had my eye exam last year, I pointed out that I’m seeing a little dark spot in the middle of my right eye; and Dr. M. thought that it was just a floater - those things that you often see drifting through your vision, that are the remnants of blood cells. This time, I told him that the same spot is still there; it's pretty consistent, doesn't move around (very much) and is especially noticeable if I'm staring at a light colored surface, or a computer screen with a white background. Just to make sure, he dilated my eyes to have better look at my retinas, found nothing wrong, and told me he still believed it was a floater.

He referred me to the eye diagram on the wall. I was aware of the one type of floater - they are actually the remains of a blood vessel that fed the lens of the eye while you're still a fetus. What I didn't realize is that they're pretty permanent - I had thought that they eventually break down. The other kind of floater, he told me, is actually a membrane over the surface of your retina. It's only anchored at the front of your eye around the pupil, and held in place by the pressure inside your eye. When you're younger, the interior of your eye is like a gel, but as you get older, it turns into more of a liquid, and therefore puts less pressure on the retina and the membrane, So the membrane sort of becomes free floating inside your eye, like a plastic baggie, except where it's attached at the front. A slight wrinkle in it is probably what's causing my spot. It makes sense, because if I look at a blank white surface without moving my eyes, I notice it does tend to drift a bit, but not very much. Luckily, it's not noticeable most of the time, but when I'm working on text documents (which tend to have white backgrounds) it can be a little distracting.

Joys of getting older. I picked out some new glasses, (purple frames, yay!) and spent the rest of the day squinting until the drops wore off. I couldn't read until my eyes got back to normal. Most of the time, I can get by without glasses, but I really notice a difference when I'm wearing them. My eyes aren't as tired by the end of the day, and when I put them on, I think, "Wow, why didn't I notice the world was fuzzy?"

I'm reminded of a Rupert Holmes song, Nearsighted (which I would have posted the lyrics to, but do you think google could find them anywhere?). Except I have astigmatism.

edit - *snerk* spell check wanted to change google to "go ogle" - hehe!