Glasses and Renoir

Hello!


Welcome to the first blog post for Eye Care Center-Ballantyne!


My name is Kara, and if you’ve been to our office before, you may have seen me sitting at the front desk. I was tasked with writing a monthly blog for our website, and I’ve stepped up to the challenge! A little about myself: I was born in California, but grew up locally here in Charlotte, Little Women is my favorite book, and, like many of our patients, I need my vision corrected. 


Everyone in my family has vision issues. My mom wears glasses, my brother usually uses contacts, and dad wore glasses too. And while there is precedent for needing glasses in my family, I can probably thank my penchant for voracious reading for some of the decline in my vision. This isn’t to say that reading isn’t good-- only that my nose was so stuck in books as a kid that I never seemed to look up. These days, I do more reading on my phone than in a book, which hasn’t done my vision any favors (the small print, the blue light-- it snowballs on a person). Needless to say, I’m incredibly near-sighted.


I started wearing glasses in the 5th grade. Besides having trouble seeing the board in school, I distinctly remember describing the trees as looking like an impressionist painting, the leaves in their various shades of green blending together as if someone had smoothed them over with a palette knife. “It’s like a Renoir painting!” I would say to mom in the car. My parents had a poster of Renoir’s “Luncheon of the Boating Party” framed on their bedroom wall and the brushstrokes felt similar to how I saw the world. Putting on my first pair of glasses (silver, oval-shaped Ocean Pacific frames with waves engraved on the temples), I was shocked at how much definition there was in the landscape. Wearing contacts began in the 10th grade. I can still remember the first few weeks of getting used to them, my hand swiping at my empty face to push-up the phantom glasses I forgot I was no longer wearing. 


So, you might ask, when should I bring my child for an eye exam?”. Our office doesn’t see patients younger than five-years-old, but there are pediatric ophthalmologists that can do routine wellness exams for your child if needed.  Family history can play an important role in your child’s vision, so it doesn’t hurt to have it checked out. At the very least, even if your child doesn’t exhibit any signs of needing vision correction, you can bring them in to make sure their eyes are healthy. And if they start using 19th century art movements to describe the physical world? Maybe give us a call. ;)

Hours of Operation

Our Regular Schedule

Charlotte Office

Monday  

9:00 am - 6:00 pm

Tuesday  

9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Wednesday  

9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Thursday  

9:00 am - 6:00 pm

Friday  

9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Saturday  

9:00 am - 1:00 pm

Sunday  

Closed