A few weeks ago I was watching TV and saw a commercial for these sexy glasses:
Whoa, I thought to myself, I bet I would look DAMN good in a pair of those bad boys! So I promptly got on the phone and left a message with eSight Corporation inquiring how to get my hands on these babies. Because what girl doesn't want to look like Lt. Cmdr. Geordi LaForge, am I right??
Ok, ok, so that's not quite how it happened. What ACTUALLY caught my attention was the claim that this device gave vision to people who are legally blind, especially those with Stargardt's Disease (the eye condition I have). I went to the website and watched a few testimonials of people who wear them and I was curious but skeptical. I called the next day and talked to a really nice guy who, besides touting the virtues of the eyewear, told me that they cost $12950, which made them seem out of reach for me. I was still curious, though. The company is based out of Ottawa and I happened to be planning a trip to visit my good buddy Meghan the first week of July, so we set up an apportionment.
I was still super skeptical and even considered cancelling my appointment because it was going to interfere with my Montreal time but convinced myself to just go and try them out. So bright and early on a Thursday morning, Meghan graciously drove me to the complete opposite side of Ottawa from where she lives and dropped me off at a random building in an industrial park.
Once I was inside, I met a lovely lady named Carolyn who did the usual "read the largest thing you can see" tests with me. For which I did my usual best guessing, which was met by the usual silence and "good try!" that I have become accustomed to over the last decade or so. (P.S. I DO know that the first letter is a big E... this test was different, ok?!). My vision tested out at around 20/400, which was not news to me. Then I put on the sexy eyewear and tried again. Carolyn kept zooming in and suggesting I try lines further and further down the chart. I was thinking I was maybe reading 2 or 3 lines down and was still kind of underwhelmed. Then she showed me on the chart what I could see with the glasses on. It was the itty bitty, teeny tiny little letters waaaaaay down at the bottom of the chart. With the glasses on my vision was corrected to 20/20!! Then we did close up print. Again, I could only read the biggest print and it had to be really close to my face. I put the eyewear on and we did the same thing, zooming in and moving further and further down the page. When I took them off I was reading at 20/32, which is, again, the itsy-est bits-est little print EVER. Look! I'll show you!!
My iPhone camera can't even make that clear! We also did some tests of contrast and hooked the device up to the TV so I could watch that right in the device itself. Both those tests were cool but what I was most excited about was being able to read!! And see the clock! I wanted to ask Carolyn if I could look at her face but I didn't want to creep her out. We chatted for a few more minutes and by this time I was pretty emotional because holy crap, I could read!!
I met up with Meghan outside and didn't shut up about it for quite awhile and she very kindly tolerated me saying the same things over and over again for the first half hour of our road trip! I still wasn't sure what to do about the cost so I decided to just sit on the whole thing for a few days and enjoy my trip (by the way, please go visit Montreal if you8 can, it is AMAZING). A few days later, I decided to set myself up with www.gofundme.com, posted it to my Facebook and with a couple minutes I already had a donation and the ball was rolling. Four days later and here we are!
If you enjoyed reading this and you think this might be something you'd like to support, please click the donate now link at the top of the page or share my blog on Facebook. I have already felt so much generosity and love from people, including strangers, who have given gifts of money and kind words!!
Thanks to all of you!! xo
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