At my final consultation this morning, I could barely see the big giant E on the screen only a few feet in front of me.

That got me thinking to just how bad my vision really is. How bad are my eyes?
We always hear that "normal" vision is 20/20. The doctor told me that my vision would be classified as 20/CF.

The "CF" stand for "count fingers" - a term they use for when vision is worse than 20/400.

But what do those numbers mean?

I did some digging to find out....HowStuffWorks.com summed it up pretty succicntly:

"The expression "20/20" is so common in the United States that there's even a TV show named after it. Here's where the 20/20 designation comes from.

By looking at lots of people, eye doctors have decided what a "normal" human being should be able to see when standing 20 feet away from an eye chart. If you have 20/20 vision, it means that when you stand 20 feet away from the chart you can see what the "normal" human being can see. (In metric, the standard is 6 meters and it's called 6/6 vision). In other words, your vision is "normal" -- most people can see what you see at 20 feet. (From here on, please assume that the word "normal" has quotes around it).

If you have 20/40 vision, it means that when you stand 20 feet away from the chart you can see what a normal human can see when standing 40 feet from the chart. That is, if there is a normal person standing 40 feet away from the chart and you are standing only 20 feet away from it, you and the normal person can see the same detail. 20/100 means that when you stand 20 feet from the chart you can see what a normal person standing 100 feet away can see. 20/200 is the cutoff for legal blindness in the United States.

­You can also have vision that is better than the norm. A person with 20/10 vision can see at 20 feet what a normal person can see when standing 10 feet away from the chart.

Hawks, owls and other birds of prey have much more acute vision than humans. A hawk has a much smaller eye than a human being but has lots of sensors (cones) packed into that space. This gives a hawk vision that is eight times more acute than a human's. A hawk might have 20/2 vision!"

This morning I had my first meeting and consultation with Dr Lanny Hale at the Hale Vision Center in Brookfield (their offices were super-easy to find, by the way!).

First I met with Patty, who did three different tests in one room. It kind of reminded me of being at the regular eye doctor's office...placing my forehead against the bar while she looked deep into my eye, etc. Patty printed several reports and we were off to another exam room.

In here it was exactly like the regular doctor's office. She measured my current eye strength and got to see first-hand how terrible my vision is.  I read some letters on the wall and she measured the strength of my current pair of glasses.

Towards the end, Dr Hale himself came in to review the results of the tests with me. He said that overall I appear to be a good candidate...but since I've worn my contacts recently, the shape of my eye may still change. I've got another appointment for a full, longer eye exam in a couple weeks.

Today's appointment lasted about 30 minutes. Dr. Hale explained every last detail to me...and I'm glad. I'm not a doctor...I don't know these technical terms. I just know I'm sick of the hassle of glasses and contacts and would like a permanent change.  I wouldn't trust my vision to just anyone and after meeting with Dr. Hale it is pretty obvious he knows what he was doing, and I trust him to be my Lasik surgeon.

-mike