I Can See..... Well, Soon Anyway

Let me preface this post by saying that for my entire life I have been in love with being outdoors. My family has owned a cabin on Barren River Lake since before I was born and we've spent many a summer down there on the lake, in the woods, by bonfires, etc... Now I've always had issues with insects. I swear you'd think my blood was tainted in sugar the way mosquitos flock to me. And not only am I the one with ALL the bites but I'm also the one that ends up with huge whelps that take forever to go away, wherever I'm bitten. The evidence is still present on my legs from where I scratched the living day-lights out of those blasted bites.

So basically, I love being outside and aside from my yearly run-ins with the mosquits I'm lucky to have no allergies or have had any serious issues. That is until this past year....dun dun dun

So on the weekend of Easter of 2009 Stephen took me up to Mount Saint Francis in Indiana where he had his senior retreat when he was in highschool. He had constantly talked about all the time he spent in the woods and the beauty that surrounded the campus. Anyway, we took the afternoon and ventured thru the woods and around the lake and over creeks, etc... and it really was beautiful and I can see why schools would have retreats there.

But then, on Easter Sunday, I started developing a rash on my chest. Never having experienced hives before I assumed it was just poison ivy and began the proper protocol. However, by the end of the night, my entire body was covered in the hives (diagnosed by Stephen's mother) and I was itching all over the place and so confused because I've been so good about not having allergies.

You can see the rash developing on the left side of my chest in this pic from Easter

Anyway, throughout the rest of the summer, these mysterious and resilient hives reappeared 2 additional times. I eventually got over them but was somewhat concerned about the reaction.

Fast-forward to November. I go to my optometrist for my annual eye-exam-nothing out of the ordinary, I get new contacts and go on my merry way. Two weeks later my right eye turns blood red after wearing my contacts. I become very alarmed as I took a break from my contacts for several weeks just thinking my eyes needed a break. But every time I attempted to wear my contacts the redness returned.

My horribly, painless, constantly red eye (and I needed to get my eyebrows done :)

I finally went to the optometrist and learned that now I'm all of a sudden allergic to my contacts! I was peeved!!! She informed me that I probably wouldn't be able to wear my contacts again and that this kind of thing just happens sometimes.

So after weeks of pouting, I made an appointment with John Kenyon Eye Centers to talk about the possibility of lasiks. Well, my appointment was today and after having my eyes examined and poked and prodded for 2 hours I have an appointment on April 1st to have lasiks!!!

The following are things I am super excited about:

• waking up and being able to see the alarm clock where it sits on the night stand
• not blindly searching for my glasses or cell phone while in bed
• not having to worry about my glasses falling off my face while I'm running or exercising
• not having to worry about if I have my contact case and solution every time I want to stay the night somewhere
• opening my eyes under water
• gaining back those several minutes a day where I'm cleaning and either putting in or taking out contacts

I've never taken my site for granted basically because I've always had to wear some sort of corrective devices. I'm so looking forward to not having to constantly think about how my glasses/contacts will affect the activities that I want to participate in!

Peace, ya'll