I had my first contact lens ‘lesson’ last week and to say it went badly would be a huge understatement. To be very honest with you, I don’t know why some part of me thinks I’ll ever be successful with a process that involves precision, skill, and being okay with repeatedly touching your eyes. I’ve never been successful with body related things no It involves precision, dexterity and repeated eye contact, think about it: all ear piercing episodes have ended disappointingly when the holes inexplicably decided to close on themselves. My flirtation with eyelash extensions was painful and short-lived, and don’t even get me started on the time I thought I’d be using a diaphragm for birth control.
I’m fine with doing things to/with my body as long as I don’t have to interact with it in the same skillful way you’d expect from, I don’t know, a medical professional. I like being without responsibility. I can use a battery-operated foot file, for example, but if you ask me to inject myself with a life-saving anticoagulant twice a day for a week, I’ll look at you with a distant expression that means I’ve definitely not processed the instructions. I can Veet my bikini line, but don’t ask me to check my own c-section for infection. Go ahead and pierce my ears, but I can guarantee you I won’t turn the nails to free the stinking lawn.
Things I’ve vetoed because of my post-baby aversion to messing with my body in any way shape or form: getting an IUD inserted, starting much-needed Invisalign (I have a bite problem that needs correcting), and doing any form of facial alteration, injection or adaptation. Unless a procedure is going to keep me from getting sick or dying, then I don’t care anyway. Jump back in with your needles and rollers and things that freeze your fat.
So why did I make the decision to have a crack at wearing contact lenses? Surely this decision is – at best – misguided. At worst it’s completely and utterly crazy. I had a complete meltdown at my first cystoscopy (Google it if you dare) and was so traumatized that I sat in the tub for five hours, silently rocking back and forth with my knees pulled up to my chest. Which makes me think I may have imported things into mine eyes will it get better? Having to touch the wobbly eyeballs, those jello balls, the things from which Lady Caroline Succession (maybe one of the best drama ever rest in peace) called “face eggs” with such a tone of disgust?
Putting things in my eyes was better, apparently. I’m getting blunt. I mean if you had the choice between opening your eyelids and steadily hitting your eyeball, over and over again the Having a camera installed in your hole then I can imagine you fall into the same camp as me. I’d choose the eyeball every time. However, it is not what I would describe as an enjoyable occupation. Apparently I have fluttery eyelids, which hinders things when it comes to fitting contact lenses, but tell me this: what sociopath It does not suit do they flinch when anything approaches their bare, vulnerable eyeball?
Anyway, it took ages to get the stormed stuff up and I haven’t even had a chance to do it yet. And I have astigmatism so some parts of the lens are thicker and I had to blink a lot to get them into place, which felt like blinking with an eyelash stuck in my eye and it all felt very contradictory. If I’m being honest, the lenses still felt like lashes or debris, even when in place.
But I had barely recovered from one ordeal when another began: a lesson in how to get the stormy things out. There I was positioned, in front of a pedestal mirror that had obviously been updated to show me in my worst light, and all I could see was a version of myself that was at least fifteen years older than I was used to (possibly because I’m so blind) pulling faces that wouldn’t be out of place in an aquarium and poking herself over and over in the eyeball while exclaiming ‘oofs’ and ‘ohs’ and ‘arghs’!
If it happened to someone who didn’t know my condition, which is that I had to sit there until I learned how to remove those little eye discs of doom, they would think I needed immediate help. Because who willingly sits around ringing their eyes until they’re dry (I needed emergency drops) and sore (of course they did) when there are racks and racks of perfectly comfortable glasses for me to try on right around the corner?
It needs to improve. That’s what everyone keeps telling me and so I’m taking another stab at the whole thing. For want of a better phrase. I have another appointment – Eye Death Episode II – at the end of the week and it will either be disastrous, it will end in another mild panic with me breaking out to say “just get them out for the love of God – GET THEM OFF ME!”, otherwise I’ll come out victorious with a trial pack of my special day lenses and a spring in my step. I can’t see that there is a middle ground. If, once again, my eyes feel like they’re being massaged with sandpaper, then I’ll have to politely decline a trial and draw a line under my contact lenses.
Many thanks to everyone who has so far sent in tested contact lens methods, they are much appreciated. I can do a show of hands for those who thought they would never conquer it after their first transition, but then emerge, to use my own description, winners?
Image credit Unscrew
