Tools you can't live without

[shifty]

Originally Posted by richard2717

forgot the more important one nowadays (eyeglasses)

This one hit home for me.

Was diagnosed legally blind while not wearing corrective lenses ... in the 4th grade. All distance stuff, was in excess of -7.0 in both eyes.

Started wearing contacts in 6th grade. Wore those til I was in my late 20s and then-undiagnosed autoimmune disease made the eye docs tell me my eyes were too dry to wear them. Around 30 the FDA finally approved contact lens implants as a fully-reversible-alternative to lasers, so I was 1st in line to get that done.

Went for more than a decade after that seeing like an eagle, although the change in my focal point made close-up things like soldering less easy than it used to be, but still manageable. I used to laugh at the parents and in-laws breaking out flashlights and glasses to read menus in moderately-lit restaurants. People would always say, "Don't you worry - wait til you're 40, you won't be laughing anymore". Yeah, right.

Hit 40. Near vision is still excellent.
Then 41. Near vision is still excellent.
Then 42. Near vision is still excellent.

Then 42, 5 months, 2 days, I wake up as usual, pick up the phone to see how bad my day at work will be, same as every day, based on the amount of crap filling my inbox. But, damn, must be more eye-boogers than usual this morning, let me hold my phone a couple inches farther away...

Then 42, 5 months, 7 days, I wake up as usual, pick up the phone, and now I'm holding the phone a foot farther away.

By 42, 5 months, 16 days, suddenly my right arm isn't quite long enough for my right eye, so I'm reading with my left arm out away with my elbow at a 15-20° angle.

HUH.

I think I was more shocked at how quick it happened. I expected it would all unfold over a few years. But naw, was literally about 2wks start to finish on the worst of it, bad enough I booked a next-day appt with the eye doc because they warned me any massive changes in vision could be a retinal detachment related to my ICL surgery. Before a month had passed, suddenly flashlights were really helpful on smaller text.

And now I'm back needing glasses again. At least I got a good 15+ years out of the surgery. Most of my friends who got LASIK were in readers 5-10 years early, almost all within 5-6 years of their first burn. On the positive, I can still get mine reversed.

But I have no shortage of readers now. Just need a light +0.75 or so for close-up tasks, and keep a pair of +2.0 around for when I'm soldering or fidgeting with the super-fine stuff.