Perpetual frustration: Being a one-eyed bandit in an electronic world

In an age where everything is done with touch screens and keying in passcodes and pin numbers, having the ability to use both eyes to accurately hit sensitive electronic buttons is essential. For me, I am constantly plagued with utter frustration. I cannot tell you have many times I want to throw my iPad across my room because I am not able to hit the right letters on the electronic keypad or accurately touch my iPad screen.

My eyes do not work together. My right eye muscles are weak. My right eye muscles do not pull my right eye in far enough to align with my left eye. In distance vision, I am able to use prism in my glasses to compensate for this defect. For close vision, I have not been able to play around with various prism strengths to find the best strength for my eyes. (It took five pairs of distance glasses to find the correct prism strength. Being a girl of limited financial resources, this is not an option for close up vision.) Instead, I must wear an eye patch over my right eye if I want to see anything close up.

I used to be very vain about having to pull out a pirate eye patch in order to read. However, if I do not use an eye patch, I develop very painful headaches, neck aches, dizziness, nausea and eye strain. Wearing an eye patch allows me to see close up, without developing lots of unwanted symptoms. However, the significant downside is I lose my depth perception.

Depth perception in a 2D world is not a big deal...but when living in a 3D world, it can be so frustrating. Trying to hit buttons on an electronic screen is a nightmare!!! Trying to read numbers off a card and then enter those numbers into a phone keypad drives my patience to the very limits. I must concentrate very hard to hit the buttons correctly, trying to get my brain to compensate for the loss of depth perception, and trying to do it fast enough before the automated system interrupts and says, "Sorry, I did not recognize that number.". As hard as I try, I make many, many mistakes. I am so grateful for computers and for the resources available to me today. However, it is hard not to become frustrated when it takes 5-10 times longer to complete a task because I have poor depth perception from having to patch my eye. Perhaps some day I will be able to get reading glasses with the correct prism strength which word enable me to see close up without using an eye patch.

Until then, I try to keep calm and be very grateful I have an eye patch to use for close up vision and have prisms in my distance glasses. (I used to have to wear an eye patch for distance vision as well. Loss of distance depth perception left me very bruised and sore because I could not see things on the right side of my body. I ran into many, many walls!) It gives me another reason to thank God for all his mercies. "Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and enter into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him and bless His name. For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting; and His truth endures to all generations." (Psalm 100:4-5)