Private Opinion

Getting Contact Lenses

My medical insurance allows me to have one vision examination per year as well covers some of the cost for getting new glasses/contact lenses. I have been wearing glasses since July 1997, the month I started my UG engineering degree. So, after almost 9 years and at the beginning of a second masters degree, I decided to graduate to contact lenses.

If you think (like me) that putting on lenses on your eyes is easy, then let me tell you, it is not. Eyes are really sensitive to someone poking fingers into them. With a lot of difficulty (on optometrist’s part) and lots of tears (on my part), he was able to get both the lenses on to my eyes. Then after sometime, he decided to teach me to do it myself. Now, I have big eye-lashes, and as soon as I tried to touch the lens, they just fluttered. I had an appointment with my advisor later in the evening and it was getting late. Finally, after a long time and many tries, I was able to take off my right-eye lens and then put them on again. Left eye was a totally different story. If you are a right-hander, then it is much more difficult to deal with the left eye. In the end, the optometrist had to help me along.

My experience of wearing contact lenses till now has been quite good. I feel lighter and more free. The only problem is that I keep on arranging my glasses, which are not there.

Now, it is night and I am supposed to take my lenses off. Obviously, there is no optometrist to help me out.

Let us see what happens.

Update: A couple of days back, I had an internship interview at 2 pm. Unfortunately, I decided to wear contacts. I spent 10 minutes in getting one lens into place and then at least 1 hour in trying to fix the other one. If you are a right-handed person, it is really difficult to handle the left eye. Now, when you have one contact into place, then you can’t really use your glasses because you would be able to see clearly through one eye only. I lost the left-eye lens twice during this period of my self-inflicted torture. It was so frustating searching for the lens in the wash-room with one eye. I was also getting late for the interview and finally in just about time, I was able to fix the left-eye lens. Then I somehow managed to wet my lens with water and it burned and burned. My eyes were red and I looked terrible. I reached my interview a few minutes late. Thankfully, the interview went well and I was able to secure the position. Lucky lens?