On Disability, the Visible Kind
I wore glasses from my early teens until 2015 when I underwent LASIK surgery. But aging and naturally dry eyes meant that they are back on now. I just got a new prescription for shortsightedness. For now, I am advised to wear them while driving and watching television, but it is only a matter of time before I’ll be completely dependent on them for everyday functioning. This brings me to a subject I’ve been wanting to write about for a while: visible and invisible disabilities. My disabilities define who I am, they have allowed me to accept myself as I am, but it has also affected how people perceive me, who they think I am, how I am.
Since the subject is important and personal, I’ve split it in two posts. In this first part, I discuss my visible disabilities.
Let me being with the subject on hand, glasses. I first needed glasses when I was 13, the summer before my 8th grade. Initially, I was delighted because wearing glasses was cool, but I soon realized, it was a hindrance. After that, my prescription went up consistently from 0.25 in each eye, ending up at 5.45 by the end of 2014. But wearing glasses didn't mean I could see clearly, far from it. It could have been the lack of availability of highly technical corrections at the time, but I was never able to see clearly since I wore my first pair of glasses. There was always something off. Of course, it was an appendage on my nose for good, but there was more. I have astigmatism and dry eyes which remained undiagnosed until I had my eye surgery.
I remember ending up with a tear-drenched face when I rode my scooter to school every morning, to the question, had been crying, from my friends and classmates. When I said, no it’s the cold wind in my eyes, they bought it with a tiny bit of suspicion. But it was the truth. My eyes had always been temperamental (like me, must I add?) I also distinctly remember waking up with severely burning and watery eyes after my afternoon naps on those hot summer afternoons of the academic break. What does this have to do with anything, you ask? Well, let me tell you a story…(you knew there was a story coming!)
For emphasis, let me repeat that despite my oft-corrected lens prescriptions, I never had 20/20 vision and this led to me being labeled as arrogant and/or weird. There was this one instance that’s been imprinted in my memories. It was circa 2002 and I was sitting in the corridor chatting with a friend in the lab building of the newly constructed DA-IICT in Gandhinagar. My friend smiled at someone walking up to us from behind me, and as I turned I saw one professor making her way to us. But when I looked at the professor, from that distance, despite my glasses, i couldn't tell if she was looking at me, so I didn't wave or smile. I turned to my friend and resumed our conversation. When the professor walked past us, she said hi to my friend, but completely ignored my smile and hi, because she’d assumed I had ignored and disrespected her. In fact, such was her impression of me that she never acknowledged me after that, not even years later when I saw her again.
It was only after my LASIK surgery that I was able to see crisp clear outlines of the objects. I said to V, who didn’t have glasses then, that people without glasses can never understand the joy of being able to see clearly. It was like a superpower! Well, it was while it lasted.
Over the years, I tried using contact lenses too. I remember the first time I tried to get a pair. This was a time before lenses could be bought OTC or online. At the time, only a doctor could get you one. But before I could go to an ophthalmologist, I had to tackle the herculean task of convincing my parents why I needed one. Of course, it had a cosmetic purpose - I could look less like a nerd without those giant glasses on my face - but I also hoped I could see more clearly. And of course, I would pay for it, I had boasted to my parents. This was in college and I was earning a stipend as a UGC merit scholar. I put Rs. 800 of my own money toward my first pair of lenses, but let me squash your hopes right there. It didn't work; I didn't wear those lenses, not for a single day. For you see, that nincompoop of a doctor, without a thought to my large iris size or the condition of my dry eyes recommended semi-soft lenses instead of soft ones (which were more expensive at the time. As a side note, I don't think they make hard and semi-soft lenses any more, and for good reason, they were instruments of torture for sure). Even during the trial sessions, I kept complaining to the doctor that not only could I not see clearly because the circumference of the lenses was smaller than my iris, but the semi-soft ones were too hard for my dry eyes and I couldn't keep my eyes open at all without water running down my face. The doctor had already ordered the lenses for my prescription and was unwilling to change them, which meant I carried that useless pair home with me and never used it.
It wasn’t until I was at DA-IICT and earning again that I got good quality soft lenses made. But the happy twist in this story is that my first pair of contact lenses also led to my first love. That first time I wore lenses, V saw me, approached me, and told me what beautiful eyes I had! Later he confessed that he fell in love with me that day (so he claims!) Hmmm, my disability became a hero in my own romance story!
This last year has been instructive to me in many regards, the least of which has to do with my disabilities, the invisible ones. That, in the next post…