Golden Views, Sunglasses to the Rescue

Living with this myopic degeneration diagnosis these past two years and certainly been “eye-opening!” (Pun intended). I had honestly never even considered this to be on my radar. I had seen the words macular degeneration before and just assumed it did not apply to me. As “luck” would have it, I got the degeneration part, just not the age-related part, as mine is myopic. I am extremely nearsighted and the stretch of the eye itself causes all my problems - a diagnosis in and of itself.

The progression of this degeneration brings with it distorted vision and wavy lines.

An issue of too much sun

I also struggle and have struggled for quite some time with sun sensitivity. My (simplified) assumption before learning of this disease was that the sun was bright and wearing sunglasses wasn’t necessarily anything I was worried about or considered a problem. I squinted a lot, used sun visors and hats to block the bright probe of the sun, for most of my days.

Learning about new sunglasses

In just the past few months I learned of a solution to this problem. There are specific sunglasses made especially for the degeneration of the eyes. They actually fit over your glasses, no need for frustrating clip-on sunglasses that never really functioned as I needed them to.

The lenses of these fit-over sunglasses actually come in a variety of colors, depending on what works best for you. My personal experience had always been dark lenses create too much overall darkness, details became obscured, making seeing anything clearly very difficult. I opted for the yellow lens. This decision was a game-changer for me.

The perfect pair

I could finally wear a pair of sunglasses that actually dimmed the brightness without taking away the view that I needed to see. The added bonus is also the fact that they have 100% UV Protection.

No more squinting

Just like that, magically, I was able to actually enjoy walking out into the bright of day and not need to squint to see the world around me. Driving on a sunny day no longer is a struggle, the roads are distinct and unclouded for me to see. I have even worn them on overcast days, enjoying the clear view of the day for a change.

A golden view

The yellow lenses do cast a golden hue on things around me. On a recent walk around our neighborhood pond, I was amazed as I looked out across the water.

As the wind gently blew across the pond’s surface, creating a rippling effect and what I saw was almost out of this world. The tiny whitecaps from this rippling water were reflecting with a golden tone to me. I stopped in my tracks, quickly dropped the lenses from my eyes, blinked, and clearly saw the true colors of the water.

Marveling at the newfound magic

Continuing on my way, glasses readjusted, the gentle golden hue presented itself in so many places. That first walk with the new sunglasses probably took a little longer that day, as for the first time in a while, I could not help marveling at all of the newfound magic around me.