“This is it,” Katy thought to herself. “Room 517. Now, do I knock, or do I use the key?” In the end, she decided to do both, so that when she opened the door, the room’s other occupant was halfway across the room and coming to meet her.
“Hello, I’m Katy. You must be Samantha.”
“That’s right, although only my grandparents call me Samantha. Everyone else calls me Sam. I was beginning to think you weren’t coming, and I’d got this room to myself for the year.”
“I couldn’t come yesterday, as I had a family funeral to go to. I hope I haven’t missed too much.”
“Not really. There was a disco last night, and we’ve had a few introductory talks and things today, but we’ve mostly been settling ourselves in, and, in my case, trying to read as much of my pre-course reading material as I can.”
“You can tell me all about it shortly,” said Katy. “I’d better go and get my things from the car, so I can get started on my unpacking.”
“You do that,” replied Sam. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
Once Katy had moved two large suitcases of clothes and other items into the room, the two girls spent a couple of hours chatting together and getting to know one another. They discovered they had a number of things in common, including the facts that they both disliked Justin Bieber, both of them had been on holiday to Corfu that Summer and that they were both short-sighted. They continued chatting together as they made their way to the refectory to get something to eat and when they got back to their room afterwards. Both of the girls had decided they wanted to try something different while at university, so when it came to the Clubs and Societies Fair later that evening, they went together.
“Why don’t you join the skydiving club?” a friendly male student suggested to them, as they made their way past his table.
The girls declined the offer, as Katy did not like heights, and Sam said she was even more scared of drops.
“Come and join the Extreme Ironing Society – we have regular joint meetings with the Speleologists,” another person suggested. They dismissed that one on the grounds that it was utterly pointless.
“Ah, you two ladies look ideal for the Marathon Club!” came a third suggestion.
“But I can’t even run for the bus and catch it,” objected Katy.
“I’d never manage 26 miles or however far it is,” said Sam.
On this occasion, the student who had accosted them was a little more persistent, and went on to explain that she had been a member for the last year, and that “Marathon Club” sounded rather more impressive than “Jogging Group which usually ends up in the Students’ Union Bar on a Monday night” and that, although one of them had gone on to run a marathon last year, and a handful had also done the local half marathon, most of them were quite happy to go for a 3 mile run and stop for a chat and a drink afterwards.
Katy looked at Sam. “What do you think?” she asked.
“We might as well give it a try. I could do with losing a few pounds, and as I haven’t done any proper sport for the last couple of years, now might be the time to start again properly.”
“Okay then, we’ll join. What do we need to do next?”
It turned out to be the best decision they had made that evening – unless you counted NOT being part of the group of students who had to be rescued from underground when their ironing board got wedged in a small hole and prevented them from getting out. It took a couple of months before they could run all three miles without stopping, and even that took them a very modest 36 minutes, but it was a start. They had even filled in a form each when someone suggested they have a go at the local Santa race, a 5 mile event in town, and decided to increase their training to three times a week, and to try to run at least 5 miles once a week.
For the first couple of months in the Marathon Club, the weather had been kind to them, but as November drew to a close, the weather deteriorated. Running in the dark and the rain was not much fun for Katy as her glasses were next to useless, but she would have been even more a danger to herself if she had not worn them.
“Why don’t you get yourself some contact lenses?” Sam suggested.
“I’d never really thought about it,” Katy answered. “My parents both wear glasses, and so does my little brother, and their eyesight is much worse than mine. They all have flat fronts to their glasses because they’re so strong. At least my sight isn’t that bad, and these glasses look normal enough.”
Sam did not disagree, but she was persistent. “Why don’t you try a pair of my lenses for tonight? I get a new box every month, but I never manage to use them all up, so it won’t matter if you have a couple. I even had to throw several pairs away last Summer when my prescription changed.”
“I suppose there’s no harm in trying. How strong are they?”
“-2.50. I can just about cope without them or my glasses, so if I need to spend a day reading, I often don’t bother with either.”
“They’ll be far too weak for me. I think I’m a minus 4 something, but I guess they’ll be better than nothing.”
After ten minutes of fiddling, and a lot of giggling, Sam and Katy had managed to put a pair of lenses into Katy’s eyes. There was still a noticeable blur to distant objects, but Katy had to admit that it was an improvement on her unaided vision, and when she borrowed Sam’s glasses to wear over the lenses, she felt she could actually see better that way than she could with her own glasses. She even borrowed the glasses to wear when they went for a drink after the run, and attracted a lot of compliments on her “new” glasses.
“Can I have my glasses back now,” Sam asked, once they got back to their room.
“Oh yes. I’d forgotten I was wearing them.” Katy removed the glasses and went on to take the contact lenses out as well, which proved rather easier to do than putting them in.
“So what do you think of contact lenses?”
“I’d almost forgotten I was wearing them, they were that comfortable. I think I’ll see about getting some the next time I get my eyes tested,” Katy explained. A few moments later, she added: “I wonder if I can get them any sooner, actually, as I only got those glasses just before I came here. I wonder how easy it is to order them online?”
An internet search for “Contact lenses” revealed several million hits, so Sam helped Katy to find the same type of lenses she herself wore, and after a bit more searching, they came up with the best deal. A bit more searching, this time in a file of useful documents, and Katy had her glasses prescription in her hand. It was no problem at all to enter the -4.75 in the column marked “Sph” for her right eye, but the “Cyl” column was greyed out, so they could not put the -0.25 in there. After several moments discussion on what to do, they decided just to add the two numbers together, and put -5.00 in the Sph box, and did the same with the -4.50 and -0.50 for the left eye.
“At least that way, both the lenses will be the same, and I won’t have to remember which one goes in which eye,” Katy remarked. They completed the registration process and then started to settle down for the night.
A few days later, Katy was called to collect a small brown parcel from the University’s internal sorting office which, on opening, contained two boxes of -5.00 contact lenses. She waited until Sam got back to her room later on (it was a Saturday, so there were no lectures) before attempting to insert the first one, with Sam’s help and guidance, and then insisted on doing the other on her own.
“How are they?”
“They feel great. They seem a little strong, but I can see those leaves on the tree out there much more clearly with these than I can with my glasses on. Shall we go for a run, so I can try them out properly?”
As the weeks passed, the feeling of strength gradually wore off on Katy and, instead of putting her contact lenses in in the evenings, she started to put them in at the start of the day, and wore them everywhere she went. She found she could see the screen clearly from the back of even the biggest lecture theatres, which she was no longer able to do with her glasses, and it was not long before she found herself ordering another pair from the same place as the first.
The day of the half marathon drew closer, and the runs increased in length and frequency. The weather seemed to remain wet, so Katy was glad she had gone for the contact lens option, although when the actual day came round, the sun came out and she and Sam enjoyed their run and the atmosphere of hundreds of people cheering them on. Their finishing time of 2 hours 16 minutes was not going to break any World records, but they had enjoyed themselves, and Sam had also achieved her goal of losing a few pounds.
“Have you got any plans for the Easter holidays, Sam?” Katy asked one evening in late March.
“Clothes shopping with my mum; all that running means that a lot of my clothes are getting a bit baggy, and if I take her with me, she’ll pay for them.” Sam laughed. “And when I get back here next term, I can go out and buy the sort of things you don’t want to buy with your mum there! How about you?”
“Nothing special,” Katy answered. “I need to get some new glasses, as these ones are not strong enough now.” She took them off and looked at them. “I might even go for some frames like yours. I’ll even try to keep up with the running.”
The optometrist was not particularly surprised that Katy had returned after eight months, rather than the usual twelve. He described the extra diopter of correction as being one of the hazards of being a student, and said that she should not be surprised if she needed further increases while she remained a student. When Katy chose a black, plastic frame similar to the glasses Sam wore, he advised her against going for the high-index lenses as the frame would hide a lot of the thickness, and she would probably need to change the lenses again fairly shortly. Katy hoped that this would not need to happen, especially as she had heard that wearing contact lenses could help to slow down the increases in prescriptions. After she got home, she went online and ordered herself a new set of contact lenses, using her new glasses prescription. -6 sounded strong to her, but her younger brother had come along too, and his new glasses were to be -8.50, and she still had a long way to go until she reached the double-digit prescriptions of her parents.
Sam was very complimentary of Katy’s new glasses when they got back to university. She tried them on, but they were far too strong for her, so after looking around the room, and outside to see what she could see, gave them back to Katy. Katy explained that they were now -5.75 and -5.50 in the Sph. bit, but the Cyl. part had not changed, so she had ordered some boxes of -6 lenses so she could keep running. Once again, they seemed a little strong, but she was used to it taking a couple of days to get used to new glasses, so was not surprised it took her a bit longer with the contact lenses as she went back to wearing them for running only.
The term passed relatively quickly, especially once the exams were over and done with, and Sam and Katy found they were living the lives of socialites rather than students. Somehow, they managed to get themselves voted onto the committee of the Marathon club, although they felt a little like imposters as they had not actually run a marathon. They kept up the running three or four times a week, when other events did not get in the way, and it seemed no time at all until they were heading for home for the long, Summer holidays.
If the Summer term had seemed short, the Summer holidays felt even more so. Sam and Katy had decided to share a flat in their second year, and when they moved back in in the first week of September, Sam was sporting a brand new pair of glasses. They were only a little stronger than her previous pair; the main reason for getting them had been cosmetic – she had seen some frames she liked, and the extra -0.25 diopters in each eye seemed as good an excuse as any to get a new pair of glasses, and the people at the optician’s had been only too pleased to sell them to her. Katy was still wearing the glasses she had got at Easter. She was aware that her vision was not perfect, but new glasses were expensive, so she had decided to try to hold out until Christmas, and her vision with the contact lenses seemed perfectly acceptable.
The Clubs and Societies Fair saw both Sam and Katy recruiting new members for the Marathon club, both male and female. Katy was particularly taken by a tall young student with blond hair and blue eyes, named Alex, and took every opportunity to run with him on a Monday evening, although she seldom saw him around the campus as they were studying different things. Also, when she tried to move the relationship along, she became tongue-tied, and ended up making small talk about the weather, which really did not help.
Christmas came and went. Katy was returned the next term with a new pair of glasses. They were quite a bit stronger than her previous pair, and the optician had not been at all surprised to see her. She even ordered contact lenses to her new prescription to be delivered to her university accommodation so that she had them ready after she had used the last few pairs of the previous box up. Sam had a rather more eventful Christmas, which involved breaking her arm when she slipped on some ice on the way home from a New Year’s party. When the postman delivered the priority entry forms for the local half marathon, she managed to persuade Katy to sign up again and gave hers to Alex. She had to take a bit of a break from training, but was as encouraging as she could be to Katy. She knew Katy had a crush on Alex, so the chance for them to spend time alone together was one she was not going to turn down, and if Sam could avoid playing gooseberry, then that was fine by her.
One Monday afternoon in early February, Katy found herself at a loose end. Her last lecture of the day had been cancelled as the lecturer was unwell. Sam was busy writing an essay which Katy had completed the day before, so Katy headed for the library as she felt she really ought to, although any excuse not to read critiques of “Uncle Vanya” was one to be seized. As her mind wandered, she gazed around the room, until her eyes alighted on the familiar shape of Alex’s head. “Why not?” Katy asked herself, and got up and made her way over to talk to him.
Alex seemed pleasantly surprised to see her, and was only too willing to put away his books and head off for a cup of coffee. The two of them chatted about the same things as always: their running, the Marathon club, the weather, their study load, and about the forthcoming half marathon. Again, Katy began to feel she was making small talk, and desperately sought something to say which would avoid an embarrassing silence.
“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” she said, remembering that he had removed a pair of silver frames when she had gone over to talk to him in the library. “They really suit you.”
“Thanks,” responded Alex, “I don’t really think of myself as wearing glasses as I only put them on when I’m doing a lot of reading. I was getting quite a few headaches, so I went to get my eyes tested. It turned out that I had 20/20 vision, but was told I should try a weak pair of reading glasses when doing a lot of close work, and see if they helped.”
“Did they?” asked Katy.
“Yes, I think so. I still get them from time to time, but not nearly as often.”
Katy was desperate to avoid the conversation running dry again, so in her desperation, she asked “Can I try them on?”
“Certainly,” answered Alex as he reached into his bag and brought out the case he kept them in.
“What do you think?” asked Katy when she put them on.
Alex hesitated. He liked the way the lenses magnified Katy’s eyes, but the silver frames really did not suit her slender face, framed with long, dark hair. While he was trying to find the right words, Katy got a book out of her bag and started to compare what she could see with and without the glasses. The book was definitely easier to read; the print was slightly larger, although the list of prices on the wall reminded her of how things tended to look through her own glasses once she had had them for a few months.
“You know, they really make reading easier. Where did you get them?”
Alex was pleased he had not had to say what he thought of the glasses, and this was an easier question to answer, especially as they had come from the rack in the supermarket half a mile away.
They still had an hour to kill before the weekly Marathon club meeting, so to avoid any awkwardness, and to spend a bit more time alone with Alex, Katy persuaded him to go with her and help her choose some suitable frames. This proved a little more tricky than it might have been. Katy really liked the purple plastic frames, but they had sold out of the +1 lenses, so after trying on all of the different frames, and most of the different powers (and getting Alex to try a few as well), she settled on the +1.50 lenses in the frames she liked best. Better than that, it had broken the ice between them, and a firm friendship was formed between the two. In time, they started to date, and then, on her Graduation Day, Alex proposed to Katy.
***
“Have a good day at the office, dear,” Katy said as Alex was leaving the house.
“I won’t,” he responded as he always did. He kissed her goodbye and left the house.
Katy and Alex had been married for five years, and they were expecting their first child in a couple of months’ time. They had truly joined the Marathon club, completing the London marathon together in a little over five hours the year after their wedding. That had been enough for Katy; she occasionally went for a jog once a week, although Alex had completed a few more half marathons since then. He was now working in an office in London, commuting there and back every day. Katy had been working as a primary school teacher for a couple of years but was now on maternity leave.
Everything had gone well with the pregnancy; she had had a bit of morning sickness at first, but nothing too bad, and all the scans showed that the baby inside her was growing at the rate expected. She had taken to wearing maternity clothes when her normal ones became too tight, and there was still some growing room left for her bump in what she was wearing today. Everything was going well with the pregnancy, except that she was having some vision problems. All the books assured her that these would probably be temporary, but while she was still able to fit behind the steering wheel of her car, she didn’t want to be stuck at home because she couldn’t see well enough to drive. This morning, she was off to get her eyes tested.
At the optician’s she went through all of the tests. She didn’t enjoy the puffer test, and struggled to read beyond the first three lines with her old glasses (she had had them for about eighteen months). After what seemed like an age, she could, once again, read the bottom line. The optometrist removed the trial frame and started to look into her eyes before pronouncing that her eyes were indeed fit and healthy. He had been testing her eyes, and those of her family, for over twenty years, so he knew she had the best eyesight of all of them, even if it was only in relative terms.
“You’re part of the family again,” he said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, your eyesight has got quite a bit worse since you last came in.”
“Yes, I knew that, but I put it down to my pregnancy,” Katy answered.
“And to a certain extent, you are probably right. But, as you said earlier, you need to be able to see to drive, and with the amount your eyes have changed, at least some of it will still be there after the baby comes, if not all of it.”
“How much have they changed,” asked Katy, still wondering what the “part of the family again” meant.
“Well the good news is that your astigmatism hasn’t changed since the first time I saw you.”
Katy could tell that he was stalling for time, so she decided to put him on the spot.
“And the bad news?”
“Both eyes have got another five steps worse, so your new prescription is for -9.75 in the right eye, and -10 in the left, with the astigmatism thrown in for good measure. All of which means that your new glasses will have flat fronts, just like your parents and your brother, although you have taken rather longer to get there than they did.”
“Ugh,” thought Katy to herself. She really hated how her brother’s glasses looked, and her parents’ were little better. “Perhaps my sight will get better after the baby is born, and I’ll be able to get back to ‘normal’ glasses again.”
“Perhaps…” replied the optometrist.
Statistics: Posted by Andrew — Thu Aug 08, 2013 7:28 pm