Eyesight and eyeglasses

“What’s wrong with your eyes? Have you been glued to the cable TV all summer?”, I asked Trinity after she came home from her vacation with my parents last May. She has been blinking non-stop and worse, her eyeballs roll. They move from side to side as she chatters about anything that her mind wanders off to. Mostly about Naruto and those Cartoon Network characters.

” I must have caught Tito Ew’s mannerisms. Nahawa ata ako.” She replied.

That was my brother she was talking about, and yes, my brother blinks a lot. Ordinarily, I would have laughed at her quip, she’s good at those things. But this time I was worried because her eye movements reminded me of Newton’s cradle.

I was afraid my daughter’s eyes are getting attracted to each other. So we banned her from playing with computer games and watching TV. Our antenna was broken so that’s one less aggravating past time for her. But playing with the computer, that was more difficult. She has learned how to operate it. She’s more computer literate than her yaya, so it was really no surprise when the yaya told me that she still plays with it when we’re gone.

And so, Tati Zos, decided once and for all to delete all games in the computer and that did it. The blinking stopped but the frequent Newton cradle-like movement remained. I told her to control it which she sometimes does.Two weeks ago, the blinking returned and worsened because it was coupled with a right-eye-non-stop-winking. I tried to seriously ask her what the problem was or if her eyes were hurting. But the winking was so funny the giggler in me can’t keep a straight-face.

“What’s wrong with your eyes? Stop winking, your classmates may think you’ve got a crush on them.” I said close to laughing hysterically. She hit me in the arm.

“But I don’t know why.” She whined.

I asked her to wink once. She tried but she can’t. I was surprised she can’t do it voluntarily. When she started talking to me so did the blinking and winking.

” There! You winked again. Do it again, let me take a look.” I said.

She tried, but she can’t. So I told myself, o-oh, we really have eye problems here. I sent an SMS to a nephew who works with an eye center in the city to ask him if we can bring Trinity for check-up. He replied, “OK tta. brng her on Thu.”

Th eye center is located in the provincial hospital along the highway in the city. It is a foundation that caters mostly to senior citizens suffering from glaucoma and cataracts. The center’s ophthalmologists still come from Manila so imagine the long hours that we endured before she was finally examined. We arrived before 9:00 in the morning and there were all the lolos and lolas waiting in line… or rather in herds. I noticed the pairs of slippers at the entrance and realized that everyone who went inside had to leave their footwear at the door. It was either because of the clinic’s sterilized floor or because (like what Britney once said) we’re country. Slippers are often left outside the door.

Trinity was asked to read the Snellen chart. Before that she was asked to wear eyeglasses that looks like the ones worn by Yzma and Cronk of the Disney Channel cartoon show The Emperor’s New Groove. Thinking about that provoked my sense of humor. Trinity read well up to the letters above the green line. Below that, she started squinting, obviously finding it difficult to recognize the letters. Then she read the F as P and O as G. My humor left me. I felt sorry for my girl. And because the room was full of people waiting for their turn, there were lots of “miron” commenting as if they have all the rights in the world to comment. I got so annoyed I wanted to scream at them. Who wouldn’t with comments like:

” Naku, hindi na mabasa. (Oh, she can’t read it anymore.)”
” Kawawang bata. Kabata pa e, sira na ang mata. (The poor girl has poor eyesight at so young an age.)”

Do they think my daughter can’t understand what they’re saying? They were so insensitive but they were far older than me so I decided to ignore them. Unlike them, at least my daughter didn’t need operations yet. But, she needs glasses, the ophthalmologist said. She has 20/30 vision (I also saw a 20/20 and 20/ something minus 1 in her record) and a 125 “grado ng mata”. The ophthalmologist said that it’s normal for some children to experience poor eyesight (mataas and grado) and wearing eyeglasses can correct it. Well, I didn’t really know because I still have clear eyesight. She also explained that the reason why Trinity blinks is because her eyes are looking for the light. Shutting her eyes or letting it move from side to side helps but has it has turned into a habit. Wearing glasses should correct this, I was told. And because she can’t avoid using the computer for her classes, it’s better if she gets the multi-coated ones. So, even if it meant me losing my chance to buy a copy of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, I readily gave my downpayment. By this week, my daughter’s having her first ever eyeglasses.

Oh well, the things a mom would give up for their children. Anyway, I’d rather give up the hard bound copy of HP 7 rather than seeing my daughter’s eyeballs turning to pinballs. I guess I’ll have to wait for the paperback version.