Got Me Fired Up More Than I Expected. - Tumblr Posts
Absolutely a disability and aid. I lost a lens at work once (ice bucket hit me in the face and it popped out and we couldn't find it) and I nearly had to go home because I could not function without it. I ended up on an extended break until someone ELSE found it nearly a half hour later. Sitting at my computer, with it at my usual zoom and a normal sitting distance from my computer (higher than automatic, it starts at 100% and every time it resets I have to change it back to 120% and that's WITH my glasses on.) without my glasses, I can't read the LARGEST text of this until 170% zoom (can't read anything else) and I can read the poll questions badly (everything still blurry, but I can make it out) at 240%. I have to be at 400% before I can sort of comfortably read it, and it's STILL blurry if I don't squint the whole time or move my face a full foot forward, with my chin basically sitting over my keyboard. Getting up and walking around is ABSOLUTELY disorienting. Now, my eyesight is what it in the "moderate" range, not mild (I have a -3 something (high end of that, like -3.75 ish) and a -4 (early end) and astigmatism in both. But I literally could not function at a normal job without my glasses. That was a physical job. Changing to a desk job would not have changed that. It being a "minor" disability is very much a matter of perspective, I literally cannot function without mine. I'm not sure I'd be able to safely cross a road by myself without them. When I was in school there is no seating position that would have made me able to read a whiteboard. I would have had to hover my face over a test to read it at 12 point font. And this is ignoring all the side effects related to glasses. No glasses or wrong prescriptions cause headaches, and even if I have the correct kind, I will NEVER be able to go out at night without the lights being streaky and starburst because of my astigmatism. Which is not an insignificant issue, it does make it incredibly difficult to see at night. If you are at a point where you are incapable of functioning without it, it is absolutely a disability aid. Just because it's more commonplace and even fashionable (for people who don't even need glasses) doesn't make it not.
This isn't even getting into trying to do certain things while being a glasses wearer that others wouldn't worry about. Science class at school SOMETIMES had the kind of safety glasses that went over the glasses (depended on the school), but my two shop classes absolutely didn't, I had to order and buy my own specially because they were not optional for welding. The school did not supply me with them. I haven't been swimming in nearly a decade or more but that was when my eyes were less bad and I could realistically go for short times without, but I still couldn't see well and getting goggles that had a perception wasn't an option then. I'm not sure I could go to a pool and safely go without my glasses now. I suspect not. And every time I go to the dentist we have to finagle the sunglasses so the light doesn't hurt my eyes over my current glasses or I get a migraine from not wearing them. Sunglasses are something I have to get specially, I either have to buy a clip on, one specially fitted for going over glasses OR get the transition kind of glasses when I get a prescription. I can never just BUY sunglasses without my glasses being a concern. (Unless I did contacts, a whole other set of concerns)
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