Michael O. is Sr. Technical Writer for Eyefinity/OfficeMate
I love working in the eyecare industry because I am so deeply indebted to it.
Most people don’t believe me when I tell them that I have worn hard contact lenses since I was a month old. You see, I was born with cataracts, and after undergoing four corrective surgeries as an infant, I am now aphakic. For those of you who follow this blog but are not doctors, aphakia is the technical term for having the natural crystalline lenses in one’s eyes surgically removed. While contact lenses are still the standard method of optical correction, these days, a cataract patient’s natural lens may be surgically replaced by a synthetic intraocular lens (IOL). Thirty years ago, IOLs were far too risky and expensive, thereby making contact lenses my only option.
Many people take sight for granted. You have no idea how precious sight is until your contact lenses are accidentally thrown out on Christmas Eve, or you can’t drive because you dropped a contact down the drain. Work can be interrupted. Vacations can be ruined. The possibility of suddenly not being able to see, which probably doesn’t occur to many people, keeps me on my toes.
The miracles of modern medicine and advances in eyecare have afforded me the opportunity to live a normal life. Of course, normal to me involves cleaning and securely storing my contact lenses every night and fussing with reading glasses everywhere I go. These are small prices to pay, however, considering that in past eras, my sight couldn’t have been saved at all.
It pleases me to write documentation for a company that supports what I would consider to be a noble industry, and I am proud to work with optometrists and ophthalmologists who have helped improve the daily lives of millions of people like me.
