They're not contacts...

All the way through elementary school I wore glasses. My signature look was with these orange square-framed glasses and my mom still occasionally pulls some out of the depths of her photo gallery to remind me of what I was like when I was little. However, this would’ve made it a bit more difficult for me to play sports since there’s always a fear of breaking them upon a hard impact with the ball. Thus, we were on the lookout for other ways to fix my vision. 

We explored some other options first but eventually, there came a day when my parents learned about the existence of orthokeratology, or ortho-k for short. Ortho-K involves the use of specialized and custom-fitted contact lenses that one wears to sleep which temporarily reshapes the cornea to improve vision. Essentially, myopic people have their eye shape distorted when compared to those with perfect vision and this deformation is what causes their impaired sight. These ortho-k lenses basically serve to squish/mold your eye back into the proper shape to restore vision. 

As you can probably imagine, this squishing will not cure myopia. It only temporarily relieves the condition but as soon as you stop wearing it, the effect will wear off as your eye springs back into its natural position. Typically, to have near-perfect vision for a day, I’d have to wear it for around 7–8 hours the night before in order for the effect to last that long. There comes a problem though, sometimes at night I simply fall asleep instantly and forget to wear them. In doing so, I’m essentially depriving myself of proper vision for the next day and every waking blurry moment is one where I’m reminded of the consequences of my actions (or better said, inaction) the night prior. 

People who know me from back in elementary school would sometimes randomly ask, “Hey, I see you’re not wearing glasses anymore… Did you switch to contacts?” And most of the time I’m too lazy to actually explain why they’re not contacts because then I’d have to get into the entire process behind it and even the science sometimes so it’s simply not worth it if I have something more urgent on my hands. In another case, if I forgot to wear it the previous night, I’d have to wander through my next day without being able to see what most teachers write on the board and the worst thing is when teachers call on you to read something and you just can’t see it so you have to ask them to zoom in, zoom in, zoom in a bit more… However, that doesn’t happen too often because I can get through most of my classes without ever needing to look at the board by asking my classmates beside me or by just attentively listening to the teacher. After all, they always repeat what’s already on the board. 

But if it comes to a scenario where I’m forced to admit I can’t see, somehow they always know to hit me with that “Can’t you see? You need to get some glasses.” Ouch. And once again to not have to take up class time to go through the entire process of orthokeratology, I’ve learned to simply smile and nod to hope it glides over. 

So, now you know why “They’re not contacts”.