I need glasses.
I need new glasses really.
I was going to get a new pair a few weeks ago and mentioned it to my wife which was greeted with a very vague "Why don't you wait until your birthday".
"Sorry, what's my birthday got to do with glasses?" I found myself thinking and then promptly forgot all about glasses in the busyness of the day.
About a week later I brought it up again and announced I was going to the optometrists. The response this time was a pained look on Wifey's face when she said "You've forced me to do this"
"I've booked you in for vision therapy. I wanted to surprise you on your birthday but I had to tell you so you wouldn't get new glasses to only have them thrown out for something else. Happy Birthday!"
Talk about a blessing and probably the most meaningful present she could give me.
So now the back story.
I was born with strabismus. Also known as a squint but most commonly known as being cross-eyed. Both eyes were turned quite severely in towards my nose. I have forgotten exactly when I was given the initial diagnosis but it was in the very early months of my life.
I was referred to a specialist in Brisbane by the name of Dr Paul Spiro who was the expert in the field at the time. The GP I was seeing at the time said that there wasn't anyone on the Sunshine Coast that he would trust me with so it was off to Brisbane for treatment.
In retrospect strabismus was something that really shaped my childhood. Photo albums are full of faces with eye patches and turned eyes. I have memories of eye drops and surgery, trips to Brisbane, jelly beans, hash browns, liver spots, the car park with the spiral staircase on Wickham Terrace.
There were the not so nice side effects of being teased at school too but fortunately I really don't remember that at all.
After three rounds of surgery, countless eye patches and drops, so many trips to Brisbane, hours in Dr Spiro's office (Thanks Mum!), and oh so much prayer my eyes were straight, well straight enough. I also had normal vision in both eyes, no glasses needed.
That is a miracle. The report from Dr Spiro was that he had seen children with eyes turned less than mine with worse results.
There were problems that no amount of surgery, drops or patches couldn't fix. My brain had been wired up to compensate for the strabismus and I was told this was permanent.
How glad I was to find out that this was wrong.
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More next week. It wasn't until I started writing that I realised just how much back story there was.
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