went to a funeral and almost killed myself. · 1:07am Jun 20th, 2020
An inflammatory title, but its true.
I had to go to a funeral for a childhood friend's late mother. My left eye which has been fuzzy and giving me problems with my depth perception began to hurt really bad in the middle of gravesite services. I said hi, talked, and prepared to leave with my mother following me out of the cemetery. Now this cemetary's exit is on a 4 lane, extremely busy road. Semi-trucks commonly roll here and there. That's when my depth perception went from bad to OH MY GOD and I misread the distance between a pick up truck and a semi truck. I thought there was a lot of room between these two vehicles, and nearly T-boned the pick up and cut out in front of a moving semi truck. worst of all I did this in front of my mother.
My eye began to burn, and on the way home I was so disgusted with myself and amazed I couldn't see the truck coming. I stopped at an intersection and experimentally looked to my left. I found I couldn't focus or see much of anything whenever I moved it on top of the pain.
I made an appointment with an optometrist and he said I have Exophoria, which would affect my depth perception. Its reversible with some 'eye training' but damn. If that semi hadn't slowed down...
Holy shit you okay?
5288784
Neither the pickup or the semi touched me, but I'm still kinda shaken up over it, partly for it happening, partly for me nearly causing an accident (I don't tolerate personal failure well), but mostly because I scared the living shit outta my mom.
5288815
Hope nothing like that happens again
Jesus fuck man, you worried the shit out of me when I read that title.
5288820
Absolutely. I'm taking my treatment seriously, and won't be driving on similar roads for some time.
5288839
well, its not a deceptive title, but sorry for the scare.
I really hope that your eye gets better. Living with consistent pain is no fun. I'm glad everything turned out ok.
5288850
Glad you're safe--please stay that way!
We're all rooting for you and want you to get better. Therapy almost always sucks but it's almost always for the best. Take care and we'll all be here waiting for you when you're ready for whatever.
5288850
I hope your eye gets better, I have that and it hurts like hell most of the time
Well, worst case scenario, you have to wear an eye patch and then have an excuse to sound like a pirate all day long?
5290591
It can be reversed, but it takes a bit of therapy. Exophoria means your eyes don't focus together very well, for example when I read my left eye sees the text as fuzzy while the right sees the words fine. Yet at the optometrist both eyes tested fine individually. Its when they try to work together they suck. The eye strain his causes might explain why I get migraines so often.
5290488
5289684
Thanks. I know it must seem like I'm not doing anything with the stories I wrote, but I can tell you the next chapter of Lord Barleycorn has nearly 30 pages of deleted content that I've rejected because it didn't pass quality control. I've completely rewritten this chapter several times now, and I'm back up to 9 with a clear path of dialogue. Its just Jack and Cherry talking but damn has this been difficult to balance.
5290638
Personal dialogue is something that most people struggle with alot, it involves different personalities and how best the person writing thinks the characters would act, talk, even look at and understand the topic being discussed.
Shit, Blue, my condolences. I had mild exophoria (left eye focused on far things fine, the right one didn't) and it caused me headaches when I had to look at far objects too often. Thank goodness that passed when I went to the ophthalmologist again and got a stronger prescription (I'm nearsighted), and nothing as catastrophically bad as what you described.
Don't you use any kind of painkiller eyedrops?
5317419
nope. no medical insurance so I just got some free eye exercises, a steep bill, advil, and some grocery store eye drops. oh, and a drive back home with dilated eyes at noon having forgotten my sunglasses on a cloudless sunny day. I'm sure I scared children as I drove home screaming; staring at the road and trying not to look at anything reflective.