Busy Good Day And Thoughts On Eye Dilation

2023-7-20

Today was a good day. I took the whole day off from work for my annual eye exam which was at 12:05pm, right in the middle of the day. In preparation, I spent almost no time on the computer or phone, and basically spent all morning watching anime, playing Xbox (both of which are on a TV that sits 10 feet away from me), and doing stuff around the house. I went there and did pretty well on the exam itself. I'm not sure why the optician felt the need to refract part of the exam, as I could read the lowest line of letters without issue. If anything, they were too clear, uncannily clear with the minus lenses put in front of me. Despite that weird hiccup, the rest of the exam went fine. IOP, astigmatism tests all came back normal. Furthermore, the ophthamologist (the actual eye doctor) came in and told me I'm stable. So, yay! I had Lasik 4.5 years ago and it's been a huge success. If you're sick of cumbersome glasses and contacts, I highly recommend getting Lasik, and getting it from a good place. Mine was ~$2500 for each eye, and that was in 2018, before the inflation spiral. You get what you pay for, and anyone offering Lasik for $500 per eye (or some other insanely low price) is not worth your time. Save up your money and go somewhere good like I did. This is your eyesight.

One other thing the real doctor did was dilate my eyes and look at my retinas/the shape of my eyeball. Your pupils are what gets dilated. Using a bright narrow light, she is able to see and make sense of the blood vessels and what's going on deep inside your eyeball. If you're getting squeamish, don't leave! I'm done getting technical. I will write a sort of Q&A about Lasik and how it went sometime in the future though! I'll address all of the questions I heard the most in there, to stay tuned if you're curious.

As an effect of being dilated, you become very sensitive to light and cannot see close up. Looking at a light source (i.e. a TV) will show "halos" around it, as if the light is spilling out beyond the bezels. While you can still read the words in books and on your phone, it is very blurry for 3-4 hours and you will strain your eyes doing so. It's best to give your eyes a break by spending time outside (with sunglasses) or only looking at far-away screens like the TV. The halos won't impact your ability to tell what's going on in the show. Also, try to look at your pupils in the mirror afterwards! I had to do it at an angle, but it looked so cool and creepy having these huge pupils! At the time of this writing, they are back to normal and the monitor looks fine again.

Since I couldn't be on the computer all afternoon, I stayed outside and went to Wendy's. It was too hot for fries so I ordered a Frosty. The man taking the orders offered me a $1 chocolate chip cookie and I accepted. Even that was almost too heavy. After finding absolutely no one to play with in Halo and older CoD games, I went back out to get a car inspection. They took me almost immediately and I passed! Yay! The receptionist at the auto repair shop told me that getting dilated makes her nauseous. I don't understand how, but that sucks for her. I've heard of getting nauseous and dizzy from wearing glasses with too strong a minus prescription, but not from dilation. To top things all off, there's a very...optical anime airing this season called "The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glassses". What an on-topic show for a day like this. Based on the previews, it looks like in the next episode, Komura's going to try on Mie's glasses and get so dizzy that he accidentally kabedons (wall slams) another girl, which Mie can just barely make out enough to see that it looks like he's cheating on her and gets jealous. She looks angry when she's squinting, but this won't be her normal squinting look. She'll be legit angry in this scene.

Until next time, folks!