I am 75 percent satisfied with my scleral lenses

I finally got them today. They feel great on my diseased cornea but there is some slight lid sensation on the edges of my eyes because of the large size. However I would much rather have these than not.

A definitive date

After not having heard from the secretary at Ellsworth's office, who was supposed to call me and let me know when my scleral contacts were in, I called her today and said politely, "I don't mean to bug you but I just want to know when my sclerals will be in," and she said, "Well, let me check. Our manufacturer will have them in by Monday. So they should be available to you by Tuesday or Wednesday."

Waiting for scleral lenses to come in

I must have ordered them a week and a half ago and I am still waiting for them to come in. Apparently scleral lenses take much longer to come in than regular contacts because they're more specialized and harder to make. I can't wait until they get here.

It happened! Finally!

Dr. Ellsworth agreed to let me try scleral lenses. I had to do a sort of demonstration for him since he'd never really heard of them and I even had to show him an article that I printed out off the internet about them. And then he just kind of gave in and said, "I'll call the lab. See if they can get these things ordered." He never said a definite yes, that they could, indeed be ordered, just that he'd call and ask. So the next day I asked his secretary if the lab could do it. She said yes. Then she said, "I'll call you when they come in." They cost $250 for a year's supply. I can try them first but I can send them back if I don't like them. Hurray! I hope they work.

Horrible day

I am a collge senior and I hung out with a freshman...Well it wasn't so bad...We played frisbee on the lawn and watched TV. I went to one class which the professor didn't even bother to show up to and it's the first day. He was still in Beijing. Lazy bastard. An aid passed out the syllabus and that was it. Class over. I purchased the text and went home. All day I hated my glasses. All day I could feel them resting on my nose. When I played frisbee they got sweaty and slipped down my face. I meet old friends and they must think, "You used to be cool. What are you doing with a freshman?" But the poor girl is a nice little thing so... My mom says she will help me get LASIK in December. Only four months of hating my glasses left. You have no idea.

Blepharitis and depression

I must insist to my optometrist that he let me try scleral lenses. The man was reluctant to do it because he said he'd never fit a patient for those before. I could tell he was nervous, like he really didn't know how to do it and was nervous to try. But I'm telling you, I need to have them because the kind of contacts that rest on your cornea is just too painful for me. I also have eyelid problems (called blephairitis) and I wonder if even sclerals will help with that sort of thing. Well I hope so. I've been acting strangely lately-because of my pain and my friends and family have begun to notice. I want to much to rid myself of the depression and pain. I've become pretty antisocial since the development of my eye problems. And I've considered suicide...Which is pretty fucking scary. But I guess I won't do it because my family wants me to live and would miss me I'm sure.

So I want to die

I know I will never get a boyfriend with my thick glasses. Even if I did I wouldn't feel comfortable around him as I don't feel comfortable around anyone with glass and metal resting on my face. It seems whenever I laugh they jam into my face. And glasses are generally uncomfortable. And I want to get a laptop. I have been saving all summer at my manual labor min. wage job for one. It was either a laptop or a car and I figured the smartest thing to do would be to get a laptop for school since I am a student and all. But turns out I can't get a laptop since the one I can afford is too far away for me to drive to. And without a car? My life blows. I left my sleeping meds at my mom's house and didn't sleep a wink last night. I literally stayed up all night until 6 a.m and on...

Eyes gritty

Woke up and felt as if sand had been poured in them overnight. Continuing on Restasis but it doesn't seem to help much. I can see a semester of social isolation ahead. I won't be feeling well enough to party like your average college girl. I'll be locked in my room studying. But at least I'll get good grades right? It's my last semester before graduation. If I buckle down and hold on I'll get through it. My sister graduated at age 20 from college. She took a bunch of AP courses in high school. Now she's in Spain studying international law. She said I could use her laptop for the school year which should be good.

Picture of the century

Work and Ireland

I have worked at a pizza restaurant for the past four months. Did you know the average fast food employee quits or is fired every four months? I read that in the book Fast Food Nation. If you read that you'll never want to eat fast food again. Especially the What's in the Meat? section. I'm proud of my work ethic and that I survived the hellish dishroom where you stand in one place on your feet all night long and scrub off other people's food and spit, pull wadded napkins out of drink cups, some with the occasional message scribbled on them. I remembered I got one napkin where someone had written in blue ink, "Fairy." Another one said, "Fuck you." That's always entertaining. What gets really stinky is the salad dressing on the plates. First you dump the remaining food in garbage cans, then spray them off, put them on a crate in a large silver machine that spews hot water and slam down the lid. The garbage can is enormous and it takes a few hours to fill. A chance for food to sit and putrify. Half a minute later they come out clean. I also had to put the dishes away in addition to washing them. In addition, I had to "bus tables", that is clearing the tables of dishes and putting them in a bus bin, then wiping the table down with a rag. Always a grotesque process as food would splash and get everywhere, a balancing act with dirty plates and half full glasses. And the bus bins would be so heavy once you filled them up, making my back ache. So would the big pots I had to carry. Well my boss noticed I did a good job in the dishroom so he promoted me to garnisher, making the pizzas. That involves deciphering cash register symbols before you can make a pizza. There would be triangles and GP's and other weird symbols and sometimes you had to use your brain and make assumptions about what the symbols meant because they wouldn't always be spelled out. I made mistakes the first few nights but then I got good at it. I'd have to say I'm one of the best garnishers there is, considering the others who make mistakes. Our pizza is special. The meat is crumbled, except for the pepperoni and I swear there's drugs in the pizza, that's why I haven't been able to quit working at that place, I'm hooked. And then came the accident, right before I was scheduled to go to Ireland with my family. A coworked dropped a sharp, metal bartop on my head as I was reaching down to restock the refrigerator. The accident was on the fourth of July. There is more accidents on that day of the year in the U.S. than any other day. I know why in my situation. The coworker was pissed that he hadn't been able to see the fireworks and instead had to work, so he was in a bad mood. We had been really busy that night too and he was frustrated. All night I had seen him dropping stuff. I prayed he wouldn't drop anything on me. But he did. All of a sudden a sharp knife like thing slices down on my head. It weighed ten pounds. If it hadn't hit the part of my glasses that goes back toward the ear I would have required more than the four stitches I had to get in the emergency room at the hospital. Stitched up and in pain I flew with my family to Ireland, to Wicklow, in the east of Ireland, where it rains a lot and people turn words like "sleeping" into "slayping" when they speak, "spake" and Ireland into "Ahland." The toilets weren't as good as American toilets, and there are no public restrooms in Ireland. I liked the jolly pubs where people could go with families and hang out like they were social halls. You didn't have to go there to drink. You could still have fun anyway, shooting pool and eating fish and chips. I liked the homeade food, preservative free unlike food made in large American factories and boiled cabbage and currant. My stitches were removed by a family member there who also happens to be a nurse. Dublin was a green city. Signs were green and so was the moss that grew around the river Liffy. The whole of Ireland is green so no wonder that is "their" color. I liked driving up to Kilrodgery castle with my aristocratic cousin and when the guard asked us to pay having him say smartly, "We have relations in the castle and we're here to see them" and having the guards open the gate and wave us ahead. The fact that a house had guards...I loved my other witty cousin with his sharp tongue, quick jokes and Irish lilt. And when I got back I got promoted. My boss had filled out workers comp papers. He seemed worried that I was going to quit or something. I think that was the reason for the promotion because now I'm the sald bar waitress. I do have a scar near my left eyebrow and when I smiled I feel tightness. I look like piratish or perhaps like an Irish girl who's pub brawling husband beat her. The scars just another tale to me. Like the way the fairies went. Nevermind.

Optometry appointment, discussion of sclerals. He skirted the topic.

I went to the optometrist today. He said that I have a flat cornea and that it is unusual to see someone with a flat cornea who is also nearsighted. Oh really, well that's weird because I HAPPEN TO BE NEARSIGHTED! He said usually people with flat corneas are farsighted. And then he said that he could try scleral lenses as a last resort but he wanted me to try different kinds of contacts that might be more comfortable for me. My eyes dry out within minutes of regular contact wearage you idiot! I wanted to shout but since he said scleral lenses should really be a last resort I went along and agreed to try a few other pairs. One of them, he said was a revolutionary new design made specifically for people with flat corneas. I took them and tried them. They dried out not in the doctor's office but on the way home. Wouldn't you know? Too late to take them back. The contacts he gave me aren't working. My eye feels scratchy as if there is a piece of sand in them when I wear them. I can feel the contacts rubbing against the scar on my eyelid where my chilazion was removed. WHY WON'T HE GIVE ME THE SCLERAL LENSES I WANT? JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE EXPENSIVE AND HARD TO COME BY? Now I'm starting to think LASIK is the only option. I'll have to start a new blog called LASIK and update you on the progress after the surgery I hope to get when I graduate college. For now I continue my quest of scleral lenses. At least for one more semester until I graduate.

Hopefully the doctor will say, "Nothing else really worked for you for real so you can get those sclerals."

Oh yeah and for all those out there who think your health doesn't affect your self esteem, you're wrong. I saw a cute boy, the sexiest boy on earth, think Prince William, with a Connecticut prep school accent. He was a boy from my class and we had been partners on a class project. So I strolled up to him and started talking and suddenly I get this shooting pain in my eye and he must have been like you strange, strange, little girl because I scrunched up my face and said, "I have to go," my "flat cornea" contact was causing so much trouble. I have had no social life since having problems with my eyes.

I don't know if anyone actually reads this or cares

But oh well. Today I ran errands. Got my hair cut. I look strangely unattractive with a square bob.

I cannot sleep tonight

Insomnia. I was dreaming about a guy from the internet I met off a site called hotornot.com who happens to look just like Ben Affleck. I am thinking about going to visit him in a few months only it will cost me $385 one way to New Jersey! I can't afford that on my waitress salary. Thing is I'm obsessed with this guy. It's kind of creepy. I've never seen a better looking person in my entire life. He messages me and all and says he hope I come to N.J. soon. What if he's a psycho killer? Still, I'm a major risk taker and going there is something I might eventually do once I save up enough money.


I also need a new apartment. My landlord didn't evict me-exactly, but one day he came in and saw how messy my place was and said he didn't have any more apartments available in the fall. Which was a polite way of evicting me without a formal written statement.

So basically I had sex with myself tonight. It was good but I really need to find a boyfriend. Solo sex isn't the greatest. I had a crappy budget TV dinner, then I cleaned my apartment to get ready for moving. I still haven't found a place. This place was really cheap so that I was able to put part of my paycheck in the bank each month in a savings account. If I find a more expensive one I will have zilch in savings.

Also I am really excited to get fitted for scleral lenses on Friday.

Scleral contacts

Scleral lenses are another option for those who can't wear regular contacts. Scleral lenses can often be worn even by those with dry eye, conjuctivitis and corneal irregularities. Scleral lenses are larger than regular contacts. They rest on the less sensitive whites of your eyes and dome out over the cornea to avoid touching the more sensitive cornea. They can be fenestrated, or contain an imbedded saline solution which makes for extreme comfort. They are fitted using corneal mapping, on a computer, which takes a unique image of your corneas tiny bumps, pleateaus and crevices, which regular contact fittings do not. This is done to ensure a perfect fit and to make sure they don't move around. Less movement makes scleral contacts more comfortable under your eyelids, for those with blepharitis. Because of this, scleral lenses are harder to manufacture and cost about $300. But isn't it worth it to be able to wear contacts again?
Scleral contact
Here is my personal story. Come along for my journey, this is really the beginning since I just made an appointment today to get a fitting for scleral lenses at an optomotrist's office. My appointment is on Friday at noon.

Here is my history. I have needed glasses since I was ten, at least the school did an eye test and told my mom my eyes were bad at that age. So she got me glasses and I wore them until I was fourteen. I had to be very careful about not breaking them so I was a nerdy and bookish kid; instead of playing sports, I simply avoided them. This surely affected my self esteem and the way I am today. Especially since a male school chum told me I looked like "a librarian." I pictured myself as the sort of frustrated girl who would never get a date, intelligent but ugly like Daphne off Scooby Doo or America Ferrerra off Ugly Betty. I got contacts at fourteen and wore them until I was twenty at which point I began working as a CNA in a nursing home and contracted a staph infection from one of the patients. I noticed those old people had crusty, yellow eyes so I tried to wash my hands a lot but somehow I must have not been careful enough and the infection got under my contacts leaving me with chronic blepharitis, conjuctivitis and dry eye. A chilazion was removed from my eyelid two weeks after I first noticed the pain. I thought my problems would be solved after the chilazion was gone but I found out blepharitis is a lifelong disease. The infection also gave me dry eye and conjuctivis, both manageable but permanent side effects. I tried Restasis, which helped a little and my doctor seemed to think I had a bacterial infection so he gave me steroids to control the inflammation which did nothing, proving my infection is viral and chronic, like AIDS. From the time I was fourteen til twenty, I wore regular contacts. I had been able to participate in sports and look pretty without my glasses. I felt confident in contacts, I was used to my regular contacts. But due to my infection, enlarged blood vessels and dry eyes, regular contacts felt extremely uncomfortable and I could not wear them again. I went back to glasses but felt I had no peripheral vision in them, plus they slide down your nose and are uncomfortable.

So I thought I'd give scleral lenses a try because I heard that even people who can't wear other contact lenses and even people with eye problems can wear them. So...The fitting's on Friday. I'll let you know how scleral lenses work for me.