Day 6

Today, I had my bandage contacts removed! While there's no difference in my vision (everything is still blurry), Dr. Manche assured me that this week was going to be the worst as far as blurriness goes. I went to my last class of the quarter today despite not being able to see very much (you'd be surprised how nerve-wracking it is to navigate public transportation when everyone and everything is a blur) and had the interesting experience of an in-class debate where I couldn't discern the facial expressions of my professor or any of my class members. You would think that would make it easier for me to say what I think, but I'm realizing that I'm very dependent on other peoples' facial cues when I'm communicating with them. I've also had a few friends walking in on me trying to use the computer--face super close to the screen and text ballooned up to enormous sizes--and that's earned me a laugh or two. I've also had the absolute joy of explaining to one of my professors that I need her to print off a special copy of the final for me where everything is in 18 pt font so that I don't have to strain so much to get through it. But after that last exam on June 4th, I'm totally done! Working my ass off to finish my thesis before the procedure was definitely the way to go.

I'm still feeling every now and then like I have something stuck in my eye but otherwise the pain is gone. It might also be worth mentioning that while Dr. Manche told me that these contacts were meant especially to hold on tightly to your eye--thus, the "bandage" aspect--I didn't actually end up feeling a difference between these and the regular contacts I wore throughout middle school and sporadically from high school on, which is probably the same reason why I stopped wearing them in the first place. I'm not sure if a pain scale rating is relevant anymore though, and I wish we had some kind of established scale for blurriness that I could actually measure at home so I could track that as well, though even that might not be sufficient. Even as I'm blinking and typing this entry, one blink will show clear[er] text and the next blink, everything will be fuzzy again.

I just have to keep telling myself that it's the worst week! Everything after this will be easy!