Thursday, October 18, 2007

Like lipid pools of nuclear waste


My eyes have been bothering me when I have my contacts in, and I am starting to get that problem of not being able to read things with small print. I did pick up some very cute purple reading glasses with little rhinestones at Target, but they don't really work for me. So I went to the optometrist, it was time for that anyways. When I got there the desk girl showed me a description of a new machine that they have that takes a picture of your retina. It isn't covered by insurance, she said, but it can find serious problems. I agreed and I got to look into this enormous space-age looking contraption. When I went back into the dark eye exam room, the Dr. pulled up a picture on her screen of my eyes. Left eye looked good, right eye has a little white blob on it. She pointed it out and told me that is what something called "mascular degeneration" would look like, but in my case it was probably just a reflection. They we did the "what is the last line that you can read" routine and she gave me a package of new contact lenses to try. We were going to do an experiment of what she called "monovision" where one eye is for close up and the other is for far. Okay. Then I went back to the desk girl and forked over a pile of money for the retina scan and contact lens fitting.
Well by the time I got home my vision was already weird, but she told me it would take a while to get used to it. For the next several days my vision got worse, especially in my right eye. At work it got so bad I could barely read my computer. Good old Bob tried to help, he got a box for me to put my computer on to position it for better viewing. He suggested that sometimes vision problems are caused by diabetes. Another symptom of that is extreme thirst. Hey, I have been feeling thirsty. I also made the mistake of mentioning this to my mother, who totally freaked out and looked up vision problems in "Merck's Manual" and came up with a big list of horrifying things that could be wrong with me, and then kept calling me to ask about it. Finally it got so bad that I just ripped the contacts out and turned to wearing my glasses, which I don't normally do because they make me look like Jimmy Neutron's teacher Mrs. Fowell. And I went back to the optometrist.
I told her about my bad vision, hurting eyes, and sense of terror about the inconclusive retina scan. She re-did the scan, and then checked my eyes another way by putting in florescent yellow eye drops. That allowed her to scan for scratches with a black light. After she put the drops in there was nothing to wipe my eyes with so she went looking for kleenex while I blinked and cried this stuff all over my face. Finally, she was able to determine that there's nothing seriously wrong with my eyes or vision. It was that the contacts I was trying were a smaller diameter than my usual ones and had irritated my eyes. She ordered a different kind and wrote me a prescripton for eye drops.
Since I was nearby I went to Kroger to get the prescription. While I was there I walked around the store looking at things. I like that center aisle called "seasonal." I was looking at the Halloween decorations, there were all kinds of spooky things with fake blood and yellow eyes...YELLOW EYES! I hadn't looked in a mirror since she put the eyedrops in! I was a spooky thing with florescent yellow eyes! I hurried home as quickly as I could, I hope I didn't scare anybody too much.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would someone PLEASE throw away moms Merck manual?

Mary Beth

kid_curry said...

I did a similar thing with Burt's Bee Lip Balm. Under Halogen lights it turns WHITE. I walked around Costco with what appeared to be zinc oxide on my lips.