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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mark Des Cotes, I get nauseous if I eat with my glasses on and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share the lesson I learned while visiting my optometrist.
Friday Forum
I loved the Friday Forums you guys sent in for our November gratitude theme. I was especially moved by Barb’s story. My mom passes two years ago and I can’t help but get a lump in my throat when I listen to some of your submissions. Anyway, we’re now in December so why not try a little holiday inspired Friday Forum? Do you have any stories to share about the holidays? Friday Forum is your opportunity to do so, Just make sure it’s a story that other listeners and I can learn from. It can be as short as 30 seconds or several minutes long. It really doesn’t matter just as long as it’s something that will benefit others. You can participate in Friday Forum by visiting our Feedback Page or calling our voice feedback line at 1-304-837-2278.
You’ve been hearing us talk about Lynda.com lately. Last week you heard me share how I used Lynda.com to learn website design. I hadn’t looked at their new courses in a while so I checked them out. Do you know they have an entire section for education? I mean specifically for teachers and students. They have over one hundred courses in this category, with things from teaching tips and how to motivate your students on a Monday morning to how to write a research paper for high school and college students. I’m particularly interested in the speed reading courses they offer. I do a lot of reading and if I could shave off an hour or two from each book I read it would be worth way more to me than the cost of taking the course. If you’re curious as to what they have to offer go on over to https://www.goldenspiralmedia.com/lynda, that’s Lynda with a Y and have a look. You can sing up for a free 7-day trial that gives you unlimited access to all their courses. If you decide to continue it’s only $25 per month. We do get a small commission if you sign up through our link. But honestly, you would get much more out of it than we do. You could also buy gift accounts for all the teachers and students you know. A stocking stuffer perhaps? So have a look.
What I Learned Yesterday:
I’m 45 years old, so it shouldn’t be a big surprise to hear that I wear glasses. After all, most people’s eyesight will degrade over time so I count myself lucky that I went 37 years with near perfect vision.
Eight years ago while visiting my optometrist I complained to him about these headaches I would get whenever I would do any highway driving. After my examination he told me the headaches were caused by my eyes straining to focus on distant objects. The cure for my headaches was to get glasses. Now like most people that had never worn glasses before, I was skeptical. I was sure I had perfect vision. But I conceded and ordered a pair. I chose a frame I liked that came with one of those magnetic sunglass clip-ons and splurged for those Crizal lenses I kept seeing TV commercials for. You know, the ones that reduce scratches, dust, fingerprints, smudges and glare? By the way, if they really do work as well as advertised, I’d hate to see how often I’d need to clean non Crizal lenses.
The day finally came for me to pick up my glasses. When they placed them on my face I was shocked at the difference in my vision. Now, my vision wasn’t that bad to begin with. Without my glasses I could still see the branches on trees a few hundred yards away. But with them on I could see the small twigs sprouting from those branches.
Wearing glasses made a difference, but not so much so that I relied on them. At first I only wore my glasses when driving but eventually started wearing them whenever I went outside. I had the magnetic sunglass clip so most of the time I wore them as sunglasses and not necessarily for the vision improvement. I never wore them in the house and to this day, very rarely keep them on when I come inside.
One day, about four years after getting my glasses I was out on my tractor mowing my lawn. It was late in the day and I didn’t need the sunglasses so I hooked the glasses onto the front of my T-shirt as so many people do. While mowing I came across one of my dogs’ toys and as I passed by it I bent over to pick it up. You see where I’m going with this, don’t you. My glasses slipped off and before I could do anything they bounced under the tractor, clinked around a couple of seconds and then nothing. I found the glasses twenty feet away in the trees that surround my yard. They were twisted like a pretzel but still in one piece, the sunglass clip however was nowhere to be found.
I was about two months away from my next eye appointment when this happened. I was pretty sure I would be told I needed a new prescription so there was no point in buying a new pair at that point. You see, my wife’s health insurance, which covers the whole family, pays for one appointment per year. If you go more than once you have to pay for the extra visits. I managed to twist the glasses back into a somewhat normal position without breaking them and managed to get by for the next couple of months.
When my appointment finally came around I was told, as expected that my prescription had changed slightly and I would need new glasses. This time around I picked out a nice half frame by Oakley, the kind of frame that covered the top half of the lenses leaving the bottom exposed. I stuck with the Crizal lenses, but this time I also opted for Transitions. This adds a special coating to the lenses that causes them to turn dark in sunlight, turning them into sunglasses. I had heard mixed reviews from people but had decided on it anyway, and never once regretted it. Now, as anyone with transition lenses can tell you, they don’t work in the car. The UV protection of the car’s windshield prevents the special coating on the lenses from reacting. So for driving, I bought a clip-on pair of sunglasses with little hooks that wrap around the lenses. I’ve been wearing this pair for the past 4 years and love them.
Last year at my annual eye exam my optometrist asked me if I was having trouble reading. I told him I hadn’t noticed anything and he chuckled and patted me on the back. He told me to enjoy it while it lasted, because at my next appointment he would be telling me I needed reading glasses. Now I don’t know if my doc is really that good, or if he’s a warlock and placed some curse on me. Because within six months I was starting to strain whenever I tried to read small print. I could usually figure it out but I was doing a lot more arm adjustments bringing items farther and then closer to my face before finding the optimal distance to make out the writing.
So it came as no surprise about a month ago when I went for my appointment and my doctor told me I would need new glasses. What did surprise me was the mention of bifocals. To me, bifocals were those ugly glasses my father wears that have that funny shaped piece at the bottom of his lenses. I mean they’re for old people. Ok, being 45 I’m sure I’m old to some of you, but I’m talking about senior citizens here. My doctor eased my concern by telling me that they can now make bifocals where you didn’t see the special reading section so nobody would be the wiser. So while my eyes were dilating for the next test, he told me to go have a look through his showroom and find a frame for my new glasses. The girl in the showroom helped me out but I was having a hard time choosing what I wanted. Choosing a frame is always a hard choice since you’re going to have to live with it for a few years. She offered for me to take a few frames home to get my family’s opinion and I took her up on it. While jotting down the frame numbers I would be borrowing, I asked her to give me a rough quote for the glasses. I’d want the same thing as last time. Crizal lenses, all the special coatings including transitions, and a sunglass clip for driving. The frames I chose were all around the same price so she gave me a ballpark figure. I was shocked when she told me it would come to roughly $800. My wife’s insurance covers only $200 so I would be out of pocked over $700 when you added the taxes. This was an expense we were not expecting. My son had just started University, which we are helping him pay for, and our car, which was beyond repair, needed to be replaced before the license expired at the end of the month. I took the frames home to show my wife but I was seriously contemplating forgetting the whole thing and just living with poor vision.
My wife wasn’t happy with the expense but told me it was something I needed and I should go ahead and get them. We would manage somehow. So I tried on the frames for both her and daughter and we finally decided on the pair that suited me best. Then my daughter said they kind of looked like my own frames and that’s why she liked them. I took out my glasses and compared the two. They were both Oakley frames and almost identical. This gave me an idea. Why not use my own frame? They were in really good condition, and if I didn’t have to buy new frame I could save around $150.
The next day I went back to the optometrist to talk to the girl in the showroom. She looked at my frame and told me that yes I could indeed use them. I would have the make a slight adjustment to the shape of the lenses to allow for the bifocal. but otherwise I was good to go.
While she was working up the paperwork for the new glasses I casually mentioned that the doctor told me my eyesight had changed but I hadn’t gotten a copy of my new prescription. So she offered to print one out for me. Now, I don’t know what the numbers mean so I asked her how they were different form my old prescription. She looked it up on the computer and told me that my prescription for distance hadn’t changed. It was only the reading part that was new. Wait a minute. So my old glasses were still good? I was about to pay all that money for bifocals that wouldn’t change my distance vision? Ah, not going to happen. I had just presumed my prescription from 4 years ago had changed. As I said earlier, I rarely wear my glasses inside, which is where I do most of my reading; so new bifocals wouldn’t benefit me in that way. I thanked her very much and told her I still needed to think about it, but that was just an excuse to get out of there. I then drove to my pharmacy and picked myself up a cheep pair of $20 reading glasses off one of those rotating display racks. They wont win me any fashion awards but what do I care. I only need them in the house. If I’m out and about I can still get buy without them. Besides, I learnt a neat little trick. If I use the camera on my iPhone I can focus on small print and read the magnified version on the phone’s screen. And the best thing is, since my new reading glasses are prescription glasses, my wife’s insurance will still reimburse us the twenty bucks. It doesn’t matter where I bought them.
Here’s what I’ve learned.
You hear it all the time. Make sure you read the fine print. That’s exactly what I had failed to do. Not literally, but I hadn’t asked the right questions. My eye doctor told me I needed new glasses and I took his word at face value, presuming my old glasses were no longer good for me. I didn’t question him when he mentioned bifocals. I didn’t ask him about the changes in my eyesight. I didn’t question him about my existing glasses. Maybe it was all innocent when he sent me to the showroom to look at frames, or maybe he was being a good salesman. I don’t know. Either way I almost got caught in the trap and it would have cost me a few hundred dollars I really couldn’t afford to spend.
You have to be careful when making any decision, especially those involving large amounts of money. Ask questions. Get all the facts. Do you homework. An informed decision is a wise decision. Keeping it in line with my story, and my new pair of reading glasses, I’ll just bring the point home by saying, make sure you read the fine print.
I’m Mark Des Cotes and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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