Eye exam
So yesterday I took off work early for an eye exam. I need to have them every six months because I'm diabetic, and the opthalmologist wants to keep an eye (pardon the pun) on two things: the condition of my retinas and the pressure inside my eyes (to wit, glaucoma).
The first part of the exam involves reading off the eye chart you find in optician's offices. I can still read 20:15 in my right eye -- that's the bottom line on those charts, which means that I'm still reading in that eye at 20 feet what most folks can read at 15. But my left eye is weaker -- I'm 20:40 in that one, the third line from the bottom.
I correct stereoscopically to about 20:20, so I'm still not a menace on the road, and don't need corrective lenses for anything, though when I'm working on the computer I tend to wear a pair of prescription eyeglasses my wife had made for me when she was still working in an eyeglass store, with a mild plus lens installed that takes the strain off when I'm reading small type.
To do the second part of the examination, they put drops in your eyes. One of the drops is this yellow dye substance which stings like hell, and makes you tear uncontrollably. Not as bad as if you'd been maced, but about as bad as rubbing your eyes when cutting onions -- just decidedly unpleasant. The other dilates your pupils so the doctor can see your retinas easier. The best part, of course, is having your face strapped into a big device they use for the glaucoma test. All I saw was the unearthly blue glow of this device that seemed only millimeters away from my cornea. If they'd just playing some Beethoven in the background, I'd feel like Alex De Large from A Clockwork Orange.
So, you wait around the lobby for about twenty five minutes or so for these substances to take effect, gradually watching the color of the room fade away into a bleary whiteness as your eyeballs become incapable of restricting the flow of light. Then they take you into the opthalmologist's exam room itself, and he straps you into a different version of the same machine you were in before. This time, he shines lights so bright you can actually feel them burning into the back of your head.
"So, this is what the deer in the headlights feels like," I said. I heard the doctor snuff at that point, but I was too blinded to know whether it was a laugh or he was just clearing his throat.
So, after all this is said and done, they send you on your way -- free to drive home -- by touch, presumably, or maybe by memory -- or just stumble out in the roadway groping blindly like a zombie freshly risen from the grave.
And for whatever reason, they collect the co-pay *after* they've blinded you, rather than before. At least I had the presence of mind to pay in cash this time around. Last time I used a checkbook, and couldn't see what the hell I was doing.
It takes a good three hours or so for the pupil-dilating stuff to wear off, during which time I'm functionally useless. I can't actually focus on anything smaller than about 48 point type, which means I can't write, can't very well read, and am hypersensitive to bright light. At one point Bonnie wanted me to bring something out to the car, which I did without grabbing my sunglasses first. I felt like a bug that had just had a rock lifted from on top of him.
The good news is that my eye doc says I'm okay for another eight months. So I don't have to go through this torture again until December.