First Contact

I recently made the jump to contact lenses, freeing myself from the chains otherwise known as my glasses.

Wisely, I decided to make this transition during the first half of April, a time in New England where the air is filled with some magic powder called "pollen" that I am apparently very allergic to. This magic powder apparently fuels the life cycle of the various plant beings. It also irritates my eyes terribly - I must keep this substance from my enemies.

This year, there are record pollen counts. These record pollen counts are not due to the weather conditions we experienced this winter, as the mystic meteorologists claim. These high counts are being experienced to make my contact lens transition as difficult as possible.

Despite this obstacle, I have taken to contacts better than I thought I would. I have never liked even the thought of putting something in my eyes. And any time that I tried to put drops in them, I just got the drops all over my face. So instead of soothing my eyes with them, the result was looking as if I had balled my eyes off.

Apparently this is not uncommon, so the Optometrist's office provides training for new users. When the "trial contacts" were ready for me, I dutifully appeared for orientation. The Optometrist's assistant first showed me how she removed and applied hers. She was sporting colored lenses, a yellow gold to go for that appealing "Cullen Vampire Family" look we all aspire to.

She made it look so easy - in and out in seconds. Me? Different story. I fumbled for about 15 minutes before I got one in. But when I finally got both in, blinked a few times and looked at my iPhone, a new world appeared! I could see! Without my glasses! I was so excited that even though it looked like I had been crying for 30 minutes that I could not wait to get back to work to tell everyone! But, NOT SO FAST!

Now, I had to get them out. Ugh! I had to demonstrate to the vampire-eyed assistant that I can put them in and get them out. Oh well, eventually I got it done.

The first few days were terrible - I struggled getting them in and out and my eyes constantly felt like there was a small brush fire in them. I did make a great discovery though. Once you can get the drops to land in your eye, they feel really good.

However, two weeks into the mission now I can plug em in, pull em out with ease, and no longer need the drops every day. I sometimes forget they are in there.

They are high maintenance though, and I am not. So wondering how long this future will last. It better last at least a year - I bought that many!