There were two main
warnings I heard when I got my first
pair of
contact lenses. One was not to
fall asleep while
wearing them when
sunbathing, or else they would
melt
into my
eyes. The other was that they were quite
susceptible to falling out, often at
inconvenient times.
I was told of a
hockey game in which one of the
players
complained of losing one. The game was stopped
while the entire
surface of the
ice was
searched.
Now, regarding the first, even though contacts become
so crusty and uncomfortable when you fall asleep wearing
them even when you're not sunbathing that their merely
melting seems like sweet relief, I have heeded this
warning.
But the second warning wasn't necessary; I didn't lose
a contact lens for a long time.
I always expected to, even though none of my friends
who wore contact lenses ever had one of theirs fall out. I
would wake up in the morning, brush my teeth, have a
nice shower, and put my contact lenses in, fully
anticipating that that might be the day one would fall out.
It never happened.
Since I started wearing them, there have been many
technological breakthroughs in the field of contact lens
design. My optician told me that I could keep my first
pair in for sixteen hours at a time. I've been told to wear
the ones I currently have for no more than twelve hours
at once. Some pairs are more comfortable than others. My
first pair felt great. I didn't even know when I was wearing
them, except that I could see much better. But with one of
my more recent pairs, my eyes were fraught with pain
whenever I inserted them.
There was one pair that was so comfortable that I kept
them for much longer than the recommended eighteen
months. (I should mention that due to scientific
advances in eyewear, the suggested life of my
current pair is twelve months.) They were a delight to
wear, until the plastic they were made of started to
degrade, and get a bit too dry, and they started to hurt
a little.
I was walking home from the bus stop when I decided to
buy a bag of potato chips at a nearby convenience
store. As it was just potato chips, I declined the
convenient plastic bag the clerk offered me to carry it
home in. But it was a fairly cold day and I was wearing a
toque, which was slightly ill-fitting. When I
awkwardly raised both my hands to adjust my toque, one
of the corners of the bag of potato chips which I was
carrying fell into my eye and popped out the contact lens.
My eye was fine. The contact lens landed on my cheek,
so I didn't really lose it. But a wave of relief came
over me, that a contact lens that I was wearing finally
actually fell out. I felt just like a hockey player!