I am really horrible at having keratoconus, and spelling it. I'm horrible at taking time from work to go to doctors appointments. I hate scheduling things too far in advance and having to be dependent on anything or anyone. Carratooconis is real son of a bitch.
I started having poor vision when I was 16, that was in 2001. I had wonderful vision prior to that, and the blurriness came out of nowhere. So, I started wearing glasses. For years I wore these glasses and they became a part of me and my identity. Every two years, I'm really bad at chulotokonass, I would go to these ding dong of a doctor and he would tell me how drastic my prescription had changed and I would buy new lenses to put in my frames.
Finally, when I was 22, I went to a new optometrist who told me that I might have this thing called Kerry's toe konis. And prescribed me these tiny, hard as hell, contact lenses. My vision still seemed the same as with glasses. But, my eyes felt like some meathead was constantly kicking sand in my eyes and stealing my girl. So, I stopped wearing them and when back to old reliable.
In 2012, I got married. It is totally irrelevant but I was also the butt of all my wife's jokes. She enlightened me that even with glasses, my vision was piss poor at best. I didn't even realize that I didn't really see things. If there was a street sign I would just look for any letters that I recognized and let me my imagination do the rest. Curry ford rd was always curt lords road. Virginia was always vista. This drove her nuts. After a while, we got a divorce. Sure, sierraleonis wasn't completely responsible for that, or at all, but my special eyes were easy to blame. The only problem was that I didn't know there was a problem, I just thought I had a short attention span.
So, after we split, I hopped ship and moved to a college town with my weirdo cat. After a while, I wanted to get an eye exam. So, I looked for the optometrist that had the coolest looking sign for their store front. Gainesville Eye Physicians won. Seriously, go their website. Their sign looks like a palm readers sign.
I went in not even thinking it had a major problem. However, this time was a little different:
I took a bunch of Adderall before I went. So I was extra chatty.
The optometrist actually seemed like she gave a shit about my vision.
She was concerned about how quickly it was deteriorating. That's when she brought up carlasunamus. I remembered the last doc that brought that up and told her about those damn contacts that she gave me. She assured me that their were new ones that would not be as uncomfortable and that I wouldn't even feel them.
So, she fitted me right there. Ok, you have you ever felt emotionally overwhelmed by every possible feeling at once? Well, I had never been overwhelmed by anything, not even my wife kicking me to the curb for some 20 year old buck. That day in 2013, after 14 years of thinking that I could see, I was overwhelmed by everything. Once she put those contacts in, I could see. I saw colors in everything. Vivid colors from tattoos on my arms, I appreciated the artists work and hated that I didn't get to fully appreciate it in from of him. I saw that my hair was starting to gray. I saw everything.
That was when I stopped wearing glasses, and started to see. That is how I found out about karatoconus and started to read street signs correctly.
The above story has been shared by Mark, one of our readers.