Episode 24: Well(EYE)ness with AZ
Listen. My vision challenges go waaaaayyyy back to third grade. And then the miracle of Lasik Surgery gave me crystal clear, smooth sailing for 2+ decades. So when things went south about 18 months ago, I was all kinds of upset.
Find out how my vision challenges can be very similar to your fitness challenges and how we can think a little differently.
So what, now what?
Get started. Make your best first decision. And then the next one. Repeat for eternity.
Confidence Project: New Year Headstart
Confidence Project: Goal Setting
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AZ: [00:00:00] Thank you for joining me on the Fire Rescue.Wellness Podcast. I'm your host AZ. I find the research and resources and then provide the fire service with the so what now, what? To ensure the health and wellbeing of every member of our profession together. Let's thrive. Hello. Hello everyone. It's AZ and this is episode 24 of the Fire Rescue Wellness Podcast.
And today I'm gonna talk about something a little bit strange, and it might not make a lot of sense to you immediately, but give me some latitude and I will tie everything together, I promise. Today I am gonna talk about contact lenses. I feel some sort of way about contact lenses. So I need to tell you my history.
In third grade, I was a smart kid, but in third grade I started falling behind a little bit. I had a headache every [00:01:00] day. My teacher noticed I was squinting at the board, and so she told my parents that I should probably get my eyes checked, and so I went and got my eyes checked and lo and behold, they.
they were not great. And I went home with an ugly ass set of glasses that I wore for years. And then after that ugly ass set of glasses, I got another one. And so my whole identity, my ability to see, my ability to be a good student was tied to these awful glasses. So it was probably about. , maybe seventh or eighth grade.
I begged my parents, can I please get contacts? Please. And my parents were apprehensive because of course I'm a seventh or eighth grade old grader. We lived on a farm. Money's tight. Contacts are [00:02:00] expensive, but they allowed me to do it. And so back to the doc eye doctor, we went.
And the only type of context that would work for me, Hard contacts, and let me tell you, those things felt like putting shards of glass in my face. But my vision was great. They worked fine. A couple years later, I was able to upgrade to what's known as gas permeable. They were still hard, but not quite as hard, not quite as uncomfortable.
Let me tell you though, track meets in South Dakota with the wind whipping around. Again, shards of glass in my eye. By the time I got to college, the technology had improved enough where I could wear soft contacts, and so I never had the ones that you could, again, this is like the late eighties, early nineties.
I wasn't sleeping in those mofos, but I had soft contacts. They were relatively [00:03:00] comfortable. No big deal and my vision. Became less of my identity because it wasn't such a pain in the ass all the time. I just got up, put in my soft context and went along on my day. Fast forward to 1997 when I was trying so hard to get into law, enforce.
and specifically I wanted to be a federal law enforcement officer, so I wasn't interested in being a local cop. Local cops were fabulous, but I had watched way too many Charlie's Angels episodes. Way too many shows about law enforcement. Yes, I know Charlie's Angels were private eyes, but you see what I'm saying?
I'd watched too many shows. I had it in my heart. I wanted to be an fbi. and I was ticking all the boxes. I was gonna make it. [00:04:00] And then I got this letter that said if your vision was worse than X Y, I think it had to be, it had be better than 2040 uncorrected. You could not be an FBI agent, and I was crushed.
I was absolutely crushed because my vision was far worse than that. And at that time, in 19 97, 98, they didn't accept any corrective surgeries because what they said was, if you had rk, which was the corrective surgery at the time, more than likely your eyes were gonna blow up if you were on an airplane.
That doesn't even make sense. Hello, science, can we consult with science? But anyway, Annette is crushed. Annette is no longer gonna be an FBI agent. Annette is much sad, very depressed. And so I went back back to normal, back to [00:05:00] my life. And then a few years later I found out actually that the government had changed their stance.
And they were accepting LASIK surgery as a corrective surgery. And so I made another play for federal law enforcement, and I had the LASIK in 2000. And let me tell you my vision, from 2000 on until recently, superhero s Superwoman, vision I, every year when I would do the little iChart for my yearly, I would be able to see it like, I don't know, way further away than what I should have been able to see.
They would always say 20 15, 20 15, 20 15. So I had this rockstar vision and I stopped thinking about glasses. I didn't need 'em, I didn't contacts. I was a superhero until about a year and a half ago, and I wasn't having too much trouble reading [00:06:00] close, but things far away just. . They weren't very crisp. I could see them, but they weren't very crisp.
And so I went to the eye doctor thinking I'm gonna get a refinement on my LASIK surgery so that I can have rockstar vision again. And the eye doctor, it actually wasn't a great experience and he scared me and he didn't give me a lot of good options. But mostly he just said, Hey, if you get las.
that's fine, but you're gonna need reading glasses all the time and probably pretty strong ones. For right now, you're of limping along. You can't see great far away, but you can see close. I wouldn't mess with it. So I went back home with my not crisp vision and lived with it until about six months after that when things got really blurry.
So I went back to the eye doctor. A new eye doctor actually. And he sent me home with a pair of distance glasses and said, when you need [00:07:00] to just go to Costco, get the reading glasses and use the distance glasses for driving or watching tv, whatever you need them for. And what I found is most recently, I'm switching back and forth between these dumb glasses distance close.
It's terrible. And my reading vision has deteriorated. . And so I started to feel actually really sad about this because I had such struggles with my vision as a child and as a young adult. And I had these 20 years of carefree, wonderful vision. I just started to really get down about it. So I took myself back to the eye doctor a few weeks ago and.
she suggested that I try some different types of contact lenses. So her first suggestion was, let's put you in one lens to read or one one lens to read, and one lens to see far away. [00:08:00] And imme. That was an immediate no for me. Immediate, no. My brain hurt. Just hearing that come out of her. . And so she said, the other option is we can get these, I think they're called multifocal contact lenses.
They're disposable. So you just wear 'em for one day and you throw 'em away and they don't work for everybody, you can try 'em. Oh, by the way, they're super expensive. They're gonna be like, if I wear them every day, they'll be like $1,500 a year. Now. Now it's becoming a financial obligation, but she gave me samples.
She sent me home with these samples. I've had 'em for a week, and I kept procrastinating because I didn't wanna try them on a workday because oh my gosh, what happens if I go on a call and all of a sudden I can't see? So I kept thinking I'm gonna try them on an off day, and then when I'd get home, I'd think, I don't wanna waste these, like I really should just [00:09:00] go for broke and try 'em on a work day.
So I did this mental mind ery for a whole week and I finally just bit the bullet and I put a pair of them in yesterday. and they weren't great. Let's, we're gonna be honest, they weren't great. The distance vision is a little bit better. The close reading is a little bit better, but they're s my eyes are super dry.
I just felt like they weren't that helpful, so I'm gonna keep trying with them. But overall it was of a loss. But as I was poking these things in my eye, I started to think like, why am I just to try these stupid things. They're free. I didn't have to pay for these. She gave them to me. Why am I not trying them?
And then I thought, oh man, it's because my vision evokes such a strong emotion for me. And the fact that I'm trying these [00:10:00] invokes another strong emotion of what if? What if they don't work? And ultimately, I'm gonna tell you right now, probably they are not gonna work. I don't think they're gonna work for me.
I don't wanna spend $1,500 a year and they're very uncomfortable. But why did I not wanna try? It was cause I was scared. I was scared of the what if? What if they don't work? But what I forgot about is what if. Do work, and I also have other options still. That's not my only option. And so I promised you I was gonna tie this to Firefighter Health and Wellness, and here it is.
Sometimes we judge our coworkers. We say, why don't you just do something like, just do something, start a program. Go to the gym with me. Eat healthy with me. Don't forget. , many of your coworkers may have very strong emotions tied to [00:11:00] their physical body. For example, they may have been a standout collegiate athlete who got hurt and can no longer do what they used to do, and that makes them feel very sad.
They may have grown up in a household where their parents and their siblings and everyone was overweight, and they might be thinking just like me with my stupid contacts. They might be thinking, what if this doesn't even work? What if I try this? What if I make a fool outta myself and try this? And it doesn't even.
Or maybe you are that person. Maybe you're the person that's sitting in the recliner right now thinking, man, I just should get started on something. I should just do a program like, what's wrong with me? Why am I paralyzed? Just don't forget you. , all of [00:12:00] those emotions potentially tied up in your physical health and Wellness journey.
So I wanna leave you with some ju some suggestions because that's always my goal. The first thing is just get started. Just start with something that sounds like it might be something that you can do. Make your best small decision. . And then after that, make your next best small decision. But just keep going.
I'm gonna keep going with these stupid contacts. And who knows, maybe I'm gonna end up with bifocal glasses, I don't know, but I'm gonna keep going. I'm gonna make my best decision, my best step and just keep going. I also wanna leave you with two podcast episode suggestions today. My friend Christina Montalvo has a podcast called The Confidence Project, and it is primarily [00:13:00] aimed towards women.
However, her content is so incredible, and there's two episodes in particular that I think you might find really. . Now, she doesn't number her episodes, but the first one I would love for you to check out is November 15th. It's called Goal Setting, and then finally December 6th. It's called a New Year Head Start, and specifically the one on December 6th I think is really gonna be helpful for you.
So again, Christina Montalvo the Confidence Project. Check it out. All right. Again, keeping these short. AZ gonna keep working on those contacts and you, if you are struggling, I would love for you to just take one step. Have a great day. AZ is out.[00:14:00]
