So on Wednesday I visited the sight central. For a couple of hours of poking and prodding and testing.

It wasn’t too bad, though. My dad helped me get out there. And we met up with a lady who was very nice and helpful and humorous.

We did all the usual optician-type tests. “Is it better now… or now? …now? …or now?” and so on. And we went outside to do some tests in the sunshine.

As I had suspected, there is no point in regular glasses for me anymore. My eyesight is simply so bad that I can’t get any improvement in general from glasses.

I can perhaps have a little benefit at close range from cheap, generic +2½ glasses. I’ve had my dad pick up two pairs for me. They give a tiny improvement. Sort of. But it’s so little that I’m not sure it’s worth it. Because it also feels like my eyes get tired when I use them. Been a long since I used glasses. And they only work at very close range, so I can’t just keep them on while walking around. But I’ll keep experimenting to see if there is any point in using them, at the computer for example. I’m thinking there probably isn’t, but we’ll see.

But we tried other things. Filter glasses for the sunshine. They helped a little. Again, I’m not sure if the benefit is significant enough. But on sunny days, I do think they will give a bit of improvement. So I’m going to get a pair of those. It will take 2-3 weeks before they’re ready for me. Just in time for summer to be over!

The lady said that we could go to an optician in town and buy them there or we could get them at the sight central. In town I’d be able to get any kind frames I’d like for the glasses. At the sight central they only had a few to choose from. But I looked at the frames she had, and found a pair that seemed okay to me. I don’t care that much. Fashion and style is less important than ever, to me.

So we’ll go back to the sight central when they’re ready and then I’ll get them properly fitted to my head and then I guess I’ll be wearing glasses outside again.

Another thing I tried was a one-eyed pair of binoculars. I guess that would be a telescope? A small, handy one. When I was trying it out she stood me in front of a poster. I couldn’t read the text on it. Then I took the telescope and zoomed in and could read, at least some of it. So that can help some. The main thing I’m thinking is that it might help me at traffic lights. Most of the time I can’t see the colour of the light. I can see where it is, but only sometimes can I tell when the light changes. I think with the telescope I should be able to see it. But I haven’t tried yet. And I’m not sure, again, how much actual benefit I’d have from the telescope. How much I’d actually use it. I was allowed to borrow the lady’s personal telescope for a couple of weeks, so I can see if it’s something I want.

Speaking of traffic lights, they are actually building a bridge over the road, the only place where I really have to pass with traffic lights. It’s almost like they’re doing it for my benefit. So when that bridge is fully functioning then I pretty much don’t have to worry about traffic lights anymore. At least, not the places I usually go alone. Which are the playground, the shopping center and my parents’ place. But of course I might still encounter traffic lights when going other places, so I’ll have to try it out and see if the telescope can help or not.

The possibly most important thing I saw at the sight central was the CCTV. It’s basically the same as my electronic magnifier, only bigger. Like the size of a desktop computer. A flatscreen monitor that shows the things you place on the plate beneath it. And then you can soom. And inverse the colours. So black text on white background becomes white text on black background. Which is extremely handy for me. Because I pretty much can’t read black text on white. I’m really happy with my electronic magnifier, without it I couldn’t really read mail for example. But the CCTV looks great. The magnifier is so small that it’s a real chore to read longer texts. For books and papers it’s really not viable. But on the CCTV you can see a lot more at a time. Depending on how much you magnify you could almost see a page at a time. So it’s really useful. And I will be getting one in 2-3 weeks as well. I am quite excited about it really. It will make reading things a lot easier. Like the manual to my new vacuum cleaner. I keep putting it off because going through that with my hand magnifier is just… a daunting task. With the CCTV it will be much easier.

I might be able to start reading TIPS-Bladet again. The weekly football newspaper. I had a subscription for that for, I don’t know, ten years or more. It was like a ritual, getting it on Fridays. In fact I remember when I went to the hospital with diabetes I had one with me, thinking I would spend some of the time there reading it. I didn’t get to read much of it though, at that point my eyesight was already getting worse and it was hard to read. At that point I thought I just needed stronger glasses. I had no idea what lay ahead.

But now I might be able to read that paper again. And my Ultima books. I have been buying Ultima books. It’s a game series that’s very important to me. And I have always wanted these books. But I was never able to get them because they’re out of print. You can buy used copies on Amazon, but I didn’t have a credit card. When I did get a credit card I didn’t even think of buying them. And then when it finally occured to me that I could buy them, well I couldn’t read anymore. But I have still bought several because I just wanted to own them. That should tell you how much I love Ultima, I spent money on books I figured I’d never be able to read. But now perhaps I will. It will still not be an ideal way to read a book of course. I will definitely still be using audiobooks as my main reading material. But for those special books, at least I will have the possibility of reading them.

I am quite looking forward to getting my CCTV, yes I am. So there.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 3rd, 2010 at 21:51 and is filed under Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.