Does anybody read these?

The "eyes" have it...

So, I lost a contact last week. Actually, I lost my last contact last week. That meant I had to go to the eye doctor today for a new exam.


Two hours, $250 (without contacts) and a cute, new pair of glasses later, I left the eye doctor's office slightly shell-shocked.

It's been a long time since an eye doctor had a heart-to-heart with me about RP. As many of you know, my dad has an inherited degenerative eye disease that affects your peripheral vision. For the past 15 years, I've been told that I am a carrier and that I seriously needed to consider whether or not I wanted to have children. I've never really had children on the radar screen for the most part, so I didn't really worry too much about it.

However, the older I get, the louder my biological clock gets. I know at this point that it's a race against time. I've always said that if I didn't have children by the time I was 40 that I would adopt, but lately I've been thinking maybe I should just think about having a baby in the next few years, husband or not. I don't know why I think I'd be a good mother, but I'd really like to try.

Except sometimes God laughs when we make plans. And today I realized that if I am supposed to birth a baby from my loins, God will make it happen and he's going to have to be in charge of that. But it was hard today, to hear words like "adoption" and "genetic counseling," and to be told, point blank: "I would not have biological children if I were you." That's a lot. And all I can really think is: what guy would want to marry a girl who really shouldn't ever have a baby. Because the baby, the husband ... it's all because I don't want to be alone for the rest of my life. (Well, that, and there are things about husbands and making babies that I miss just a little.)

I guess it's a bridge I don't really have to worry about crossing right now, definitely not today. But it still sucks to think that you can't -- or at least shouldn't -- have kids.

Aside from that, he put the kibosh on sleeping with my contacts in (yet, he prescribed contacts that say I can wear them six days in a row, hmmm...). I did get cute glasses, although they are so expensive that it's ridiculous. Thank goodness for flexible spending accounts, because the payroll people should send me the money back in two weeks. It'd be easier if we had that little credit card we could use to pay for things, but it's great either way.

Lastly on this eye nonsense. I realized today that the best hope (although it's probably too late for me and my dad and maybe even my kids) is to raise money for research to help find a cure for RP. So, I went to the Foundation for Fighting Blindness' Web site (which I almost did an internship with them in college), and found out that there is a fundraising walk in Nashville in May. I signed right up and promised to raise $1000. I'm walking in my dad's honor, and you can bet I'll be telling you all how to give soon enough.

posted by Laura at 4:32 PM