Since the age of 11, Cally, like many women of her age, has struggled with the emotional and practical issues that come with wearing glasses.
She has endured the unique glasses ‘fashions’ from the late 1980’s onwards, dealt with confidence issues, battled with fiddly contact lenses, struggled with contact lens malfunctions at parties, and through fear of the unknown spent the last five years finding excuses not to have laser eye surgery.
Even when Cally started working for the specialist eye hospital group, Optegra, and had all the information at her fingertips, she still found excuses not to proceed with surgery, all the while secretly wishing she could find the courage.
Thankfully, this courage finally came when her partner of eight years proposed and the motivation of being glasses and contact lens free on her big day took over!
“When I started thinking about the biggest day of my life, I didn’t want to have to worry about wearing my soft daily lenses all day with the risk of them popping out like they had done at the Christmas party,” says Cally. “There was no way I wanted to get married in my glasses. I have always thought that my eyes were my best feature and to have them hidden behind my glasses on such a special day was unimaginable for me!”
“I met with the surgeon, Mr Robert Morris, who – like all the other members of the team – as very reassuring and thorough, explaining everything for me and answering all my questions.”
“It felt so good not to have that to worry about my eyes at all on the day. I had no worries about wearing contact lenses and having them pop out, no worries about my eyes feeling dry and uncomfortable, no worries about having to wear glasses at all or even change into my glasses during the day, no worries about having marks on my nose from wearing my glasses, and most importantly no worries about my glasses getting in the way when kissing my new husband.”
Cally was dreading having her wedding make-up done but, thankfully, was presently surprised. “Hair and make-up was a really enjoyable experience. I had to keep my eyes open and look in different directions and I know that if I’d been wearing my contact lenses this would have been impossible. They would have popped out! Lubricating drops would have only helped for a short period of time, and of course when you use lubricating eye drops they fall out of your eyes a bit like tears, which would have meant that my eye make-up could have run, which would have been awful! I treated myself to semi-permanent eyelashes two days before the wedding and they really make a feature of my eyes. It was so lovely not to have my eyes hidden under glasses! So many people commented on how beautiful my eyes looked both on the day and after.
“After 23 years of wearing glasses and contact lenses, I feel like I have a new pair of eyes!”
What Cally loves most about her lense-free life…
- Giving my husband a kiss / greeting friends with a hug and a kiss and not smudging my glasses or having them get in the way
- Being at the hairdressers and seeing what they are actually doing and not having to wait till you put your glasses on at the end to see the finished result!
- Being able to tweeze my eyebrows and put eye make up on much more easily
- Being able to see clearly in the shower – great for shaving my legs – yes I used to have to wear my glasses in the shower to shave my legs!
- Not getting my glasses wet in the rain
- I don’t have to carry my cleaning sprays, cloths, cases etc. for my glasses or spare lenses
- Draining vegetables / baking etc. and not having my glasses steam up
- Walking into a warm room from the cold and not having my glasses steam up
- Not having my glasses slide off my face when exercising
- Being able to wake up and instantly see the alarm clock
