Alas! I’ve got to get my eyes checked out.
I’ll be some college students’ Guinea pig.
They will not scoop them out. I’ll let them pout.
No spoon will ever at these sockets dig.
They’ll shine a light and try to make me blind!
They’ll put drops of dope in there to make them wide!
Some dreadful kind of plague, they’ll hope to find!
But if I see a spoon, I’ll run and hide.
They’ll take away my specs so I can’t see.
They’ll stare into my eyes, so very close.
They’ll step across my personal boundary.
They’ll talk at me in jargon most verbose.
It’s no big deal to get your eyes checked out
If you’ve drunk enough of Guinness Extra Stout.
I’m old enough I remember have the “needle” test for glaucoma. I much preferred that to the “puff of air” test, I can’t help but jerk and blink!
I also hate having my eyes dialated. They stay that way for the rest of the day, no matter WHEN I have the exam. And it’s ALWAYS a sunny day!
I started seeing an optomologist when I was 3 years old because of eye problems (and had an operation at age 5), so it’s no big deal to me, just a pain.
But I had Lasik 7 years ago - and I LOVE it! Plus now I only have to have my eyes dialated every 5 years, until they find something (I have them check for any pre-diabetic signs because I have a huge history of it in my family).
Good luck, Walden. Yeah - it’s a pain, but your eyes are SO important - do whatever is necessary to preserve your sights. (which begs the question, how come we’ve always had dental insurance where I work, but we never have had eye care insurance???).
In the Navy I was a Ophthalmology technician for 4 years. You can tell because I can spell “ophahalmology”.
Anyway we had to pull the overnight “duty” about once a week to handle minor ocular emergencies. The standard treatment for a superficial corneal foreign body or corneal abrasion was to remove the offending object (if applicable), dialate the eye, put on some antibiotic ointment and tape on a pressure patch.
The medicine we used to dialate was called Mydriacil. A quick acting drop that lasted about a day. There’s another drug however, Atropine, that lasts about two weeks. They both came in little red labelled bottles.
One night a guy came in from the shipyard with a corneal abrasion and I accidently used the Atropine instead of the Mydriacil. Oops!
I documented everything like a good boy and basically forgot about it.
A week later the guy showed up again complaining because his eye was still dialated. Needless to say the duty ophthalmologist wasn’t amused by my error. He was pleased though that I had documented it correctly. I had to pull an extra duty as “punishment”.
Walden, that has to be terrible. The eyes are truly “windows to the soul” and it must be so scarey to have troubles with them. I will pray for you! I hope everything gets better really really fast.
