I’m not old I’m just older, after all, 38 is defiantly not old. But this is a story of realization of one’s age.

If this story was a movie I’d want this song played at the beginning and end credits.

Back in November I turned 38 years awesome. November 14th to be exact, go ahead and add that to your list of people you love, so you’ll remember to send me a card or something nice. I took the day off because I believe everyone should take their birthdays off. In fact, I think it should be a constitutional amendment. Call your local Congressman.

When I went back to work the following Monday I started getting a pretty bad headache after about 20 min into the day. I just caulked it up to still being hungover tired from a weekend over indulgence. So over lunch I took some advil and didn’t think too much about it.

If you’ve been following along with the sporadic blog post then you know I have been working a butt load of hours. 10-12 hour days 6-7 days a week even though the holidays. I’ve been getting headaches off an on all that whole time, along with blurry vision. Not just headaches but brain crushing headaches. I should also mention that I usually don’t get headaches. I would never get one or the other, they would both be happening simultaneously. So I looked into some of the symptoms of brain tumors, and brain cancer and various other brain defects. When there is something wrong with The D then I usually think it’s the worst possible diagnosis that it could possibly be from the symptoms that I had at the time.

I found out that with the symptoms that I had that it wasn’t any type of brain issue and that it was more likely a eyesight problem.  But I had a deadline coming up on Jan 14 and I knew that I was going to be working 7 days a week up until then. I also had a banquet to attend on the 17th which I still had a lot of work to take care of for that.

So I put the word out on the Twitter asking for recommendations of eye doctors. With the stipulation that they had to have some hot chicks working there. (Hey, I’m single that’s a stipulation for every thing, sue me.) I got a few suggestions but they were either not in my plan or they were all the way across town.

So I found The Fairway Eye Center in my plan listing. Of course there really isn’t a way for me to tell if they had hot chicks or not. But the proximity of the office to my house was the winning point for them to get my business. I called them on Thursday Jan 15 in the hopes of getting an appointment the next day. I forgot to mention that I was planning on taking the 16th off anyway so I might as well do it then. They got me in at 11:15 So I shuffled around some stuff and made that the first stop on my list.

I get to the doctors office at 11:15 on the nose. HUZZAH! Hot chicks! At least the one that gave me the new patient form to fill out was hot. After filling out the form she takes me into this room that is dimly lit my first thought is that there is going to be some BROWN CHICKEN BROWN COW action. But sadly there wasn’t any. The room had table, computer monitor, stool and a chair on the other side of the table. On the table there were 4 eye exam machines. If I went in to what each machine tested I’d be here for ever. So lets just say that its the most though eye exam I had ever had in my life.

I hadn’t had an eye exam since I left the Marine Corps in 1994 so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I had eye exams at the DMV but that’s not really an eye exam, now is it.

After I have all those test done I’m follow the girl (I’d say she was 25) into another room with what looks like a dentist chair in it. I have a seat and wait about 5 min or less for the doctor to come in. He comes in and starts telling me every thing that I just had done and explains what each machine tested and I’m asking questions he’s answering them. Very much like a conversation you’d have over dinner. I didn’t get the feeling he was in a rush or any thing like that. He even took the time to explain to me why it was important to get a picture of my retina. He showed me pics of what a bad one looks like, and he compared the bad one to mine. Which was totally fine. (Wipes brow).

He then shows me some of the same color blind images that I saw earlier he goes straight to one in particular.

This one:

He ask me “What number do you see?”

The D: “11″

Doc: Its actually “74″

The D: “shit”

Doc: “So you have partial color blindness. Which is no big deal. Can you tell the difference between purple and fuschia?”

The D: No and who would want to purple sucks balls.

Doc: “There really isn’t much difference but it you do have some minor color blindness.”

That was diagnosis Number #1!

Doc: “You also have astigmatism”

The D: “WTF is that?”

Doc: “Your eyes are out of whack…”

The D: (interrupting) “No shit that’s why I’m here.”

Doc: “Your eyes aren’t focusing at the same distance. One eye will be in focus at say 5 feet while the other one won’t be in focus until say 4 feet or a different distance.”

The D: (thinking to myself) “OH FUCK!! MOM WAS RIGHT!! MY EYES DID GET STUCK WHEN I WOULD CROSS MY EYES AS A KID!!”

Doc: “Again, it’s not that serious”

That was diagnosis Number #2!

We move on to the final eye exam. He swings this space age contraption in from of my face. He tells me which one is better “one…” switches something… or two.”

This goes on for about 5 min in each eye. He then says this is what you see now. “Ok?” I reply. He then switches something in the contraption in from of my face, and says, this is what I’m going to give you.

WOW!! I exclaimed! That’s amazing!! He then pulls that thing away from my face.

Doc: “Do you have an HDTV?”

The D: “Umm, yea?”

Doc: “Would you say it’s the difference between regular TV and HDTV?”

The D: OH! Defiantly, it’s amazing!

He says that my eye sight isn’t really that bad and that if I didn’t work at a computer all day then I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it for a few more months or even years, until it got worse with age.

That was diagnosis Number #3!

Its a trifecta! When shit is wrong with me I go all out!

In the short span of about 30 min I now have minor color blindness, astigmatism, and farsightedness.

So I am now just like the rest of my family, we all now wear glasses. I think the worst part about it is that now I am beginning to finally grow up a little bit. But I will never actually act like it, in fact I refuse to act like a grown up. At least when I don’t have to work 80 hours a week.

After the exam I picked out some frames that were in my plan. Frames are a LOT more expensive that I ever thought they would be, I was thinking like 60, 70 bucks tops. This lady was showing me some Tommy Hilfiger for $800. Fuck that! I thought. Give me the ones that fit my plan, thinking that I would just use them as a starter pair and end up losing, breaking, scratching, them eventually.

I picked up the new glasses last Wednesday. You know what? Not one single person that I work with has, said anything to me about them. Is that messed up? Or am I just over thinking things?

Anyway here ya go.

Remember folks I don’t care what strangers think. If I did I wouldn’t tell you half the stuff I already do.