Better Than A Poke in the Eye

I survived my eye appointment. If you read back a year ago on my blog, you will see exactly how I feel about going to the eye doctor. Lucky for me, this year’s appointment was a routine one, with no dilation of anything. I barely even had to wait before my name was called, which disappointed me because I was all set to make a dent in the book I am struggling to read, and I also had not yet finished sneakily gawking and passing judgment on the other patients in the waiting room.

After being seated in the exam room, I perched atop the chair on my sitz bones, wondering how the office staff keeps things sanitary. Do they wipe the chair down after each patient? Just curious. I didn’t ask because I didn’t need an extra reason for them to think I was nutty. Instead, I answered all the history of me questions enthusiastically and mostly honestly. I even admitted I had dry eyes yet did nothing about it. I never use eye drops, which surprised her. What I didn’t say was that I opt instead to rinse them in my mouth and pop them back in my eyes, but then again, she didn’t ask me about that. She had me read the lowest line I could on the eye chart, which somehow always feels like entrapment. Then the optical assistant took my glasses to read the prescription and left me in the room, with its soft mood lighting and disturbingly accurate posters of eye anatomy and disease processes.

After a few minutes, she came back with my glasses and Dr. S. We went through the usual routine, where he starts by asking me the same questions the technician did. Wouldn’t it be faster to hook me up to a lie detector and just ask me once? After that fun, we got down to the nitty gritty, with that Victorian eye contraption with all its little lenses and gadgets. The only thing missing is a handlebar mustache and middle part with lots of Brylcreem, a look I think Dr. S could pull off. He again made me cover my eyes one at a time and read my way through the eye chart that I couldn’t see. Every letter I said aloud sounded wrong even to me. I really hate failing a test. After a while, he stopped me, then got up close to my face with the bright light.

“You have a dot on your left eye,” he told me. I was petrified. What did that mean? Cancer? Glaucoma? Macular degeneration? Oh wait, one of my contacts has a dot on it. The right one. The right one, which was floating around on my left eye.

“Oh, Jesus,” I muttered. “How embarrassing.”

Dr. S laughed. “I was wondering why your prescription changed so much. You’ve got the right contact on the left eye. No need to be embarrassed though. You are the second patient to do that this hour.”

“So you only treat morons here? Ugh. And I sat here with the nerve to complain about them being dry. No wonder I can’t see anything.”

“Really, you aren’t that special,” Dr. S said. Could he not have chosen a different way to say that? “I have patients do that all day.”

“He does,” the assistant said. “I do it too. I came in here last week and couldn’t see a thing. I had them in the wrong eyes the whole time!” So his staff is idiotic as well.

Dr. S went on, “No lie, I had a patient in here a month ago, complaining about how bad her right eye hurt, and how she couldn’t see anything out of her left eye. She went on and on about how I gave her bad contacts and how she couldn’t see a thing and her eye was killing her. I sat her down and had a look, and sure enough, she had four contacts in one eye. She just kept putting them in there. She had two on top of one another on the cornea, and then two more folded up like tacos kind of behind her eyelid."

I sat quietly, thinking, gee, Dr. S, it’s a good thing you’re not a gynecologist. But then I didn’t want to have to explain my comment to him. I saw myself describing the whole new tampon shoved in after forgetting to take the old one out, and even I had the sense to keep my mouth shut.

“So, you see, it’s not just you, I promise. It happens all the time around here. You’re the second one today, this hour. I have a long way to go.”

Dr. S left the room, and I said to the assistant, “You know, I can’t even see the dot when I put my contacts in. That’s why I get them switched around in the first place.”

“Just leave your glasses on to look for the dot,” she said. “Then take them off and insert your contact.”

Why didn’t I think of that? And at the same time, ugh, another step in the morning routine. As if leaving my glasses on for ten more seconds will make everyone late for school. I am so rigid in my routine that I can’t allow for a little extra help, even from myself. “Thanks,” I said. “That’s a good idea.”

The good news was my prescription hasn’t changed in years, and I still don’t need reading glasses. Finally, one part of me is stable. The bad part was that I made a fool of myself before I got get the good news. Oh well, it could have been worse. I could have said tampon to my eye doctor.