Perfect Vision

MY name is Yossi, and I live in Eretz Yisrael. I’m in first grade. I like collecting cards and trading with my friends, and I love to read. Before first grade, my mother took me to the eye doctor. She explained to me that before schoolwork gets more serious, it’s a good idea to make sure that I see well. My mother told me that sometimes, there are kids who don’t see well, and they don’t do well in school — not because they’re not smart, but because they can’t see properly, which makes them unable to learn properly. That made a lot of sense to me.

We went to the eye doctor and had to wait a long time. I got eye drops that stung my eyes, but I was very brave. My mother squeezed my hand and told me that I was doing great. After a very long wait, we went into the eye doctor’s room. It was dim inside, with interesting machines and a big box of round lenses with plastic casings. I sat on a black, swiveling stool and tried to swivel around, but my mother stopped me. The doctor spoke to her for a few minutes and then he turned to me. He checked my eyes, and asked me to look at a flashlight. It was a funny, duck-shaped flashlight. Then he covered my eyes, one at a time, and looked into the other eye. Then he said we were going to play a game. He flicked a switch and the room grew even darker, and he turned on a projector. The wall across from me lit up with a gray box. In the gray box, there were numbers. He asked me if I could recognize my numbers. “Of course!” I said. We learned that in gan, a long time ago!

I said all the numbers very quickly and easily and the doctor was pleased. Then I sat on a different stool and looked into one of the machines. There was a little house inside the machine, which got blurry and then became clearer. The doctor checked both of my eyes on that machine too. Then, he told us that I have absolutely perfect vision. “His vision is 20/20,” the doctor told my mother. “But because it’s uncommon to have vision this perfect at his age, I’d like to see him in a year for a follow-up appointment.”

When we left the eye doctor, the bright sun and light outside hurt my eyes. My mother told me that it was because of the eye drops. She said they made my pupils dilate, but I didn’t know what she meant. “The pupil is the small black circle in the middle of your eye,” my mother explained. “Usually, it dilates, or gets bigger, when there’s very little light. It lets in more light to help you see better in the dark. When it’s very bright, your pupil grows smaller, to allow in less light. But the doctor gave you drops which make your pupil large even when there’s a lot of bright light, so it hurts your eyes.” She suggested that we try to stay in the shade on our way home. I asked why the drops did that. “It helps the doctor check your eye better,” my mother said.