New Glasses

Nim recently started complaining that she was having a hard time seeing well when she reads or works on detailed art projects.  I assumed this was just a return of her far-sightedness, so made an appointment with the eye doctor.

As the eye exam progressed, it became clear that it wasn't that simple.  She's not particularly far-sighted.  She's not at all near-sighted.  What she does have is a "fixation disparity" -- in other words her eyeballs don't always track perfectly together.  The difference is slight; you can't see that they aren't pointed together, but it does make it harder to focus on things, especially at the end of the day when one is tired.  Fortunately, there is an easy fix for this with the right glasses.  So, fancy new glasses with a prism correction were ordered.

What was really funny was her reaction walking around downtown Mountain View after picking up the new glasses.  I expected the general "Whoa -- everything is in focus!" reaction.  What I didn't expect was the further description "No, I mean everything, really everything, is in focus, and not just the stuff in the plane that I am trying to look at.  There's no double vision in the background. It's soooooooo weird!!!!"

Apparently the kiddo has had doubled vision in the background, or in planes other than what she tries to focus on, basically for as long as she can remember.  She thought it was normal.  Bad mom never sussed this one out...nor did the eye doctor until now....