Sally Breslin: My Life: A BAD CASE OF TRIPLE VISION

I’m the first to admit I tend to procrastinate when it comes to making appointments for things like eye exams or dental check-ups. For one thing, I hate having my eyes dilated. I also don’t like anyone digging between my teeth. Every time the dental hygienist comes at me with the explorer, which is the instrument that looks like a metal pick, I have visions of my fillings being popped out of my teeth. Considering the fact they cost me the equivalent of a new car, the thought of losing any of them frightens me.

I still can remember when my husband had to nag me to go get my eyes checked.

"My eyes are fine," I assured him, choosing to ignore the fact that my nose usually ended up covered with newsprint whenever I tried to read the paper because I had to hold it so close to my face.

I finally gave in, however, and headed to the optometrist’s office.

"I hope I do well on this exam," I told the doctor as I sat in the examining chair. "I have to get my driver's license renewed this month and I don't want to flunk the eye test."

She told me to read the smallest line I could comfortably see on the eye chart. I read all of the letters correctly except one. It was a D. I took a wild guess and called it an O.

"You missed it by one letter," the doctor said. "You're going to need distance glasses to pass your driver's test."

"Noooo!" I protested. "Let me try again!"

She shook her head and laughed. "You strike me as someone who has a good memory. You've probably already memorized that line. So I'm switching to a numbers chart."

I managed to make it all the way through the appropriate line of numbers. I was ready to break out the champagne…until the doctor burst my bubble.

"You squinted through the whole thing," she said. "You looked as if you were staring into direct sunlight! That's cheating. Now read it without squinting."

I couldn't even see the wall, never mind the chart.

After she finished the exam, I heard only two things – "bifocals" and "dilate your pupils." Neither one sounded very appealing.

"I'm going to put some drops into your eyes to dilate your pupils so I can take a closer look," the doctor said. "Then I'll have you sit out in the waiting room for a few minutes to allow the drops to work. I'll give you some dark glasses to wear so the light won't hurt your eyes."

She administered the drops and then said, "Whoa! You really dilated fast…and big! I think you need only about one-third of a drop!"

I glanced at my eyes in the mirror as I left the room. I looked like an owl.

And if things weren't already bad enough, the dilated exam later revealed the start of a cataract in my right eye.

"It's really, really tiny," the doctor assured me when she saw the look of panic on my face. "And your vision is still 20/20 with glasses, so it's nothing to worry about. It may never grow any larger."

I wanted to believe her, but already I was envisioning the King Kong of all cataracts bulging out of my eyeball within a few days.

While I was waiting for my new bifocals to be made, I decided to take advantage of a lingerie sale in a store next door. My pupils still were so dilated, not only was I seeing three of everything, every lightbulb seemed like 10,000 watts. So I put on the dark glasses and felt my way over to the store.

"Buy one bra, get the second for half-price," the sign said. Or at least that's what I thought it said. I practically had to lie on top of it to read it, everything was so fuzzy.

After looking through a rack of bras, I realized that seeing triple had its disadvantages. I didn't know whether I was looking at D cups or DDD cups. I finally had to ask the sales clerk for help.

When I explained to her why I couldn't see the tags, she laughed and said, "Been there, done that!"

"How long does this torture usually last?" I asked.

"Oh, only about an hour…or two."

That was an hour or two too long to suit me. My head was starting to hurt and the triple vision was making me feel queasy. I was afraid I might have to grab one of the DDD bras and throw up in one of the cups.

To my disappointment, my eyes didn’t return to normal for over six hours. After hour number two had passed, I decided to call my husband to come drive me home – and to bring someone with him to drive my car. There was no way I was going to get behind the wheel while seeing three lines in the middle of the road, or six headlights on each oncoming car.

So recently, when I went for an eye exam, I was prepared. I made a note to tell the optometrist to use only a small amount of the dilating drops. I brought dark glasses with me that were so large and dark, they covered half my face and made me look like the Lone Ranger when I wore them. I also made the appointment early in the day so I could take more time to allow the effects of everything to wear off.

To my surprise, my preparations turned out to be unnecessary.

“We have a new state-of-the-art camera that takes pictures of the back of your eye,” the technician informed me. “You won’t need to have your eyes dilated.”

I breezed through the exam with no problem – and no triple vision afterwards. It was great.

Now, if someone will invent a way for teeth to be cleaned without having to dig at them, I’ll be one very happy lady.

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