For my eyes only

The first and only time I failed a math test was in the fifth grade. Because this was such an anomaly, my mother was called up to school. The teacher, Sister Immaculate Marie (I swear!), was very concerned and wondered if there was something going on in my home life to distract me from school. This approach was a welcome change from the horror stories I had heard from my cousins about nuns' beating kids for looking at them the wrong way and getting doubly beaten, by their parents at home, for crossing the nuns. Sister Immaculate Marie always gave me smiley face stamps and gold stars on my tests (yes, I was very much a brown nose), so when she had to give me an F, she realized she didn't have a stamp for that grade.

The truth came out that I was having trouble seeing the board at school. I didn't want to admit that was the case, but it explains the dirty looks given to me by the only Chinese student in my class when she saw me squinting and probably thought I was making fun of her. One bright, bright summer day in 1972, my mother took me to an eye clinic on Kings Highway to have my eyes checked. It turned out I was as blind as Mr. Magoo. My glasses would not be ready for a few weeks, and I was glad, because I was already teased for being smart and redheaded; now I was going to be picked on for having glasses. I pictured myself looking something like Sherman of Sherman and Peabody.



When I left the doctor's office that day, I screamed like a vampire being exposed to daylight. The doctor had put my drops in my eyes that dilated my pupils. The pain was searing, and my mother was very sympathetic: "Come on," she said, pulling my arm, "or we'll miss the train."

I hated wearing my glasses and found every opportunity not to wear them. In high school I picked out a pair of gold-rimmed Lacoste frames that I liked, not realizing until someone pointed it out that the little alligators on each leg were preppy symbols. For my birthday I got the Preppie Handbook and some stationery with an alligator logo. Needless to say, I did not go to Exeter or Choate, and the only Buffy I ever knew was my terrier. The minute I turned 18 I went for a contact lens fitting. At the time, rigid gas permeable (RGP) lenses had just been introduced. They were the first hard lenses to allow your eye to breathe. Before that, lens wearers had to suffer with ill-fitting plastic disks that left their eyes sore and red. I had a little trouble adjusting to my RGPs, but eventually I got used to them. I had them for 24 years, until I switched to soft lenses last year.

In the 20 years I've been boxing I've always worn my lenses in the ring and have never had an eye injury. The worst that's happened is that one of them gets yanked out by a glove and has to be rinsed off and put back in. The beauty of RGPs is that they require minimal care and act as a sort of orthotic for the eye. I started going to a new optometrist this year, who recommended soft lenses. After about 5 or 6 fittings he found a prescription that worked for my eyes--a toric lens for the left and a regular lens for the right. But my vision was never quite as crisp as it was with RGPs.

Over the past few years, I've started holding fine print far away from my eyes. My night vision is almost completely gone. Without lenses or glasses, the world is one big jumble.

So I decided...to hell with visual aids.

The year is over in a little over a month. That means the money remaining in my flex spending account at work will be lost if I don't use it by then. At the beginning of this year I stocked my account with money specifically for Lasik surgery. I put it off and put if off, and now, I have to make a big decision. So, last week, after lots of encouragement by people who've had the procedure done successfully, I had a free consultation with a Lasik specialist in Manhattan referred to me by my friend Jenn, who had the surgery done there last year.

I met Chris, a Lasik consultant, who pointed out that, like Hair Club for Men's Sy Sperling, he was not just a consultant, but also a client. Chris screened me to see if I was a good candidate. After some eye scans and analysis, he said I passed the screening. At first I wondered if everyone passes the screening, but Chris said that the firm turns away about a third of the people screened. At least that made me feel there was some science behind the screenings and not just a scheme to get my money.

Chris explained the difference between Lasik and IntraLasik. The former involves a blade; the latter uses a laser only. Intralase has a 98 percent success rate of giving me 20/20 vision after 3 months, whereas Lasik has a 78 percent success rate. I already failed one math test because of my vision; at least this time I know the difference between those two percentages.

"Imagine you can wake up in the morning and see the alarm clock clearly," Chris said. Considering I have 20/400 vision, that would require a lot of imagination. Thinking about the prospect of having unaided vision, I actually started to get a little teary. That pretty much clinched my decision to have the procedure done. It's not cheap, but then neither are contacts and glasses.

I have to get those nasty dilation drops in a few weeks, but at least it will be nighttime. I have my Roy Orbison glasses all ready. Then, on December 19, I'll have the procedure done, and on the 20th, if all goes as planned, I'll have my own miracle on 34th Street.