Read the letters, please
How well can you see? For some of us, that’s an important question, and important things have names. The Snellen Chart is my latest obsession. Go ahead. Google it. I had to, so you’ll be in good company.
Looking back, my very first toy doctor’s kit contained toys. Toy stethescope. Toy reflector. Toy reflex happer. Toy spygmanometer. And a real, functional Snellen Chart, on cardboard. Not exactly clinical quality, but why quibble. I wasn’t old enough to read.
However, I now get to play with much better tools. When I went to my ophtho checkup, this afternoon, the tech started the fun with my reading letters. Some of them. At one point, I received a spatula with holes; squint just so and you can score another line of text.
There were other, more ingenious tests, that I cannot begin to describle. Price point? More than a cardboard eye chart. There’s also some video games, in a freakish sense. My preferred one is the “visual field test”, where I can prove that I am genuinely a “blindy-bat”. That one doesn’t rate a Google, just because. Now, back to the visual field testing. You get to put your head into a small dome, and then really tiny lights flash. Randomly. You have a clicker, and it scores your success/fail rate. Seriously. I won’t be posting my scores; think low.
Now, all this to show that there is an ongoing record of my fading vision. No matter what lie I might tell you when you ask about my eyesight, there are files. And someday, they will all be erased. If I can’t see them, you can’t either.
At least my intraocular presssures are stable. That also matters. To me. You may care less.
