The Eye Guy

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go to the eye doctor for my annual checkup. I don't know what it is about that place, but there seems to be a lot of strange stuff that goes on there. It started in the waiting room where there was an elderly man waiting for his wife to finish her appointment. The woman came out, and her voice sounded like it came from the deepest of ashtrays. She headed for the door and her husband got up and then promptly went back down. His foot had fallen asleep. So they argued a little bit about whether he should try to get his circulation going before attempting to walk again, and then thankfully my name was called.

The first part of the exam is performed by the nurse (or assistant or whatever they want to be called). I only wear one contact lens in my left eye, and she seemed to be very interested in this. She asked me if I used some kind of "single eye method". Huh? "Do you use one eye for far vision and one eye for near vision?" Uh, no. So we went through the whole "cover your right eye, cover your left eye, which one looks better 1 or 2 thing". So far, so good but I was shocked that without my contact in my left eye I could barely read the largest letters on the chart, and that was only if I squinted. I had forgotten from my last visit that they have replaced the dreaded "puff of air" glaucoma tester with some kind of probe that actually presses on your eyeball. It still isn't what I would call pleasant, but that "puffer" used to scare the beejeebers out of me. They would always end up having to do it 3 or 4 times on each eye because I would blink. Call me crazy, but I don't like things being "puffed" or poked into my eye. Speaking of puffing, isn't smoking marijuana supposed to help with glaucoma? Makes me think of Larry David's dad in that "Curb" episode.

Next it was time for the irritating drops to be applied to make my eyes dilate. And then it was time to settle in for the wait for the doctor. I don't know what it is about this particular office, but every time I come here I end up waiting 20-25 minutes for the doctor to come in after the nurse leaves. It's really ridiculous. I always bring something to read, although the increasing blurriness of my vision from the eye drops was making that a not too comfortable proposition. Finally the doctor came in, and then he does my very favorite thing that they do there: he makes you keep your eyes wide open while he shines the brightest lights known to mankind into them. And then he makes you look up, down, left, and right while he shines that damn light in there. But it was all worth it because he said everything looked fine.

When I'm leaving I always make sure to get a pair of those funky-ass Yoko Ono wraparound shades that they have there. And maybe I'm crazy, but is it really safe to drive home with your vision so blurry from your eyes being dilated? No one has ever mentioned to me that I might want to be careful on the way home, so I guess it must be safe. And damn, do dilated eyes look freaky!