A hallway in heaven

Posted in current events, work on 07/08/2010 03:38 pm by karen

After an ugly morning of emails pouring in as I sat on con calls, helplessly watching the work pile up in my mailbox, I spent my lunch break at the eye specialist.

This all started at my annual eye check up. The doctor looked in my eyes with the bright light and asked if I’ve been experiencing any visual distortions. Negative. Still, he said he saw an abnormality in my retina and that I should book an appointment with a specialist.

So that’s where I went today. Nice office but no wireless or 4G reception. Great. Finally some time as I sat waiting for my appointment and I couldn’t even get at my emails, which were continuing to increase. Sigh.

A technician puts drops in my eyes to dilate them, and I sit there. Blurry.

Finally my eyes and the doctor are ready. She then takes a series of instruments with increasingly brighter lights and shines them directly into my eyes until I feel like she is burning a hole into the middle of my skull. Ow! I am light sensitive to begin with, so this was AWFUL. She was VERY thorough, combing my eyes over and over with the blowtorch light. I don’t complain about the dentist; I don’t complain about root canals. I am complaining about this. Seriously, it seemed like a good torture device.

She pushed her chair back after five leisurely minutes spent searing my eyes and my brain and everything that connects them. “I don’t see anything,” she announced.

Huh.

Well, that’s good news, though hard to feel really cheerful when I am blinded and teary and thinking about migraines.

I make my way through the check out process mostly by remembering where the desk is and estimating where the face of the attendant is when I smile and say “thank you.”

She says, “You had your eyes dilated. Would you like some dark glasses?”

“No, thanks,” I say breezily. “My glasses darken in the sunlight…” and then I step outside into a July Scottsdale sun and my brain screams, “…but not FAST enough! And not DARK enough!” I stumble to my car which has crazy dark tinted windows (which I usually rather hate), and yay, my eyes stop imploding.

A probably not entirely safe drive to work. And as I walk down the hall to my office, everything is lightness and blurry edges. “Like walking toward God,” I think. Yup, this is just how Hollywood would style an office building set in heaven.

 

4 Comments

  1. Hmmm. I just did this too. Freakiest thing, them looking right into the brain while the mind fries. I always expect optometrists to be as mystical as physicists, given the mysteries at the center of eye function. But in my experience they’re never mystical at all.

    Maybe the mystery of sight is still kind of a physics thing (physics of light). Or… instead of getting mystical about their work, the eye people work on helping patients solve the other dilemma: square frames or round frames. I love watching patients try to make that decision while the eyes are dilated.

  2. Not that you would want to avoid such a heavenly experience, but the last time I was at the optometrist to have this done, they had a new machine (Optomap Retinal Photograph) that (for an extra $30 that is not covered by insurance) took pictures of your retina without dilation. Now that I think about it, it probably still can’t replace dilation in all cases, but it does create a photographic record that can be examined for changes through time.

  3. dear Karen
    do you think there might be a reason you refer to them as con calls?

    i didn’t take chances with the dilation last time and brought my huge over the eyeglasses shades. it’s so difficult to see in that condition (it’s difficult to see in the curent glare – let alone with dilated eyes.)

    hugs
    Arturo

  4. I can’t believe you drove!!!!
    Crazy lady!

    I had the same thing Wombat had- the photo of the eye. Pretty cool.

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