I want to share a story with you. It is about a girl born in 1976 that was told virtually told she would be blind by the time she was 15 or 20 years old. Her parents were told that she would always wear glasses and would never will be able to wear contact lenses. There diagnosis was something along the lines of retinal degeneration. And although her parents took the diagnosis very seriously, she never did. She figured if she could see now, she was fine. She would take it all in and enjoy every day to its fullest. Because if she woke up one day and had no sight, she did not want to have any regrets either.
This girl turned into a budding woman and turned 15 years old, still with sight. She graduated high school and even went to college, still with sight. She went to specialty optometrists and even went as far as going to a surgeon to see if there was a surgery that could reverse or stop the progression of the retinal degeneration. That was when she got the news. The fact that she did not even have retinal degeneration in the first place. Her parents had just gone on the first opinion of one doctor and had never gotten a second one. So she had lived a quarter of her life fearing being blind.
From the point that she realized her sight was just bad, and not slowly deteriorating; she wanted only one thing. She wanted to get contact lenses. She could finally have her eyes measured for them. And it would be a huge success for her to wake up and not have to worry about what makeup she could or could not wear in fear of her glasses smearing it. Often times she never even wore makeup because of her troublesome glasses. And it was those days that made her feel like less of a woman, which should never happen to anyone.
Making an appointment with an optometrist to have her eyes measured and have a complete exam for contact lenses was indeed exciting for her. It was an adventure that she had never been able to do before. So, she made sure that she got her prescription from the doctor so that she could also go online and order contact lenses in different colors. She smiled in the examination chair while she answered all of the technicians questions about whether the letters were clearer with the first lens or the second lens. Because she knew from this point forward her life would be different. It would be better, it would be fulfilled.
It might sound silly to someone that does have perfect vision, but to a young woman in the prime of her life, it meant everything. The only thing that she regrets is the fact that it took so long for her to take control of her destiny. In fact, when you think of it, it is about time she began living for herself and stop anticipating the day when her sight leaves her.