Dr. Jennifer Robichaud, "So, you're going to take the little paddle and cover your left eye. And what's the lowest line you can read out there?" Stephanie, Patient: "T, Z, V, E, C, L." Dr. Robichaud: "Good. So that line that she read is actually the 20/20 line. So she can see really well with her glasses."

Dr. Robichaud, "So we'll probably just need to make some minor changes."
Chelsey, "Okay."
Dr. Robichaud, "If any changes at all. And then we bring out what we call a phoropter, just a fancy name for a big funny pair of glasses."

It's full of hundreds of different lenses so we can make any combination of glasses with the smallest adjustments.

Dr. Robichaud dialed Stephanie's prescription in for her right eye.

Dr. Robichaud, "So now we'll have you do the left eye."

Dr. Robichaud, "So the first number is a -1.25, and it's on the big one. So move the big one until it says -1.25 in the red."

(Chelsey, "And the second one is the out knob, right?"
Dr. Robichaud, "Yes."
Chelsey, "Fifty."
Dr. Robichaud, "So dial in fifty."

Chelsey, "And then 165 is the other knob."
Dr. Robichaud, "Yes."

Now that Stephanie's prescription was in, I adjusted the instrument so she can see through the lenses.

Chelsey, "This is a great look."

We went up a step and down a step to see if making changes in the prescription would make anything clearer.

Chelsey, "Number 3 or number 4? 3 or 4?"
Stephanie, "3."

Stephanie's prescription was right on, so her glasses are set for another year.

Now Dr. Robichaud would teach me how to check the health of the eye.

Dr. Robichaud, "It's kind of just like playing a video game. You have your controller. It moves it in and out and all around. Basically what you do is you look through. And you just kind of move everything close until you see her eye in focus."

We looked around Stephanie's eye, under the eye lids and everything looked really good.

Dr. Robichaud, "So we're going to make sure Stephanie doesn't have any dry spots or any scratches on the front of her eyes."

We did this by touching a yellow dye strip to Stephanie's eye. Then we used the magnifier and a blue light to look at the eye - making the eye glow green, and trouble spots even greener.

Chelsey, "I think you're healthy."

Dr. Robichaud, "You got two expert opinions, Stephanie. You eyes look great!" "So basically, now that we've made sure her eyes are healthy and she can see well, we're going to get her a new pair of glasses. So we'll go ahead and see how the glasses are made next."

A frame has already been picked out, so all Kay and I needed to do is put the lenses together and get them inside the frame.

We start out with a large lens and work our way down.

Kay, "So that traced the inside of the frame. It pops up and those are the shapes. So now you have to take measurements to cut and edge the lenses so it lines up with the optical center. So the distance between your pupils is an important measurement. So 57mm."

Before we start marking the lens, we verify the correct power and which eye this lens is for. Then we add our block and the optical center is marked by the machine.

Now we check our order in with the edger machine.

Kay, "In a second, all the information from that computer will pop up over here."

Kay enters the specifications for the cut.

Kay, "The lens fits in there with the block, push the button and it gets clamped in."

I pressed the go button and that was pretty much it. Kay finished the glasses by heating the lenses and squeezing them into the frame. She then checked them over and cleaned them up for the customer.

Was this the job for me?

Dr. Robichaud, "Absolutely. I just think you need to go through the few more years of school and you'll be all set."

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