Showing posts with label optometrist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label optometrist. Show all posts

Thursday, January 23, 2025

SEEING CLEARLY

 



The "sizzling" earth seems to be cooling down.

Several nights ago, it was minus two below zero here in rural Tennessee. Below zero! That's cold enough to over-freeze the moonshine. Frost bite on the possum's tails.

I'm admittedly worried about my fragile rural house which is unattended in the Arctic wilderness. The negative possibilities are endless.

I had an appointment with the optometrist yesterday (Wednesday). Coldest day of the year - - I think it was 12 degrees. I had to wear crappy second-hand borrowed clothes, because my new clothes were "lost" or "misplaced." Hhhmmm....

The second-hand clothes are all black. I looked like the Grim Reaper....in a wheelchair. I was accompanied by my faithful nurse Henny, who is near 80 and nearly deaf. She shouts everything, but has a distinct hillbilly charm.

Do you remember the good ol' days when you visited an optometrist? You read an eye chart and get a prescription for glasses. A simple procedure.

Nothing is simple nowadays.

After a forty minute wait, I finally had to consult with half a dozen people - - who took tests on me and my eyes, diagnostic tests, scans, and procedures. Questions, questions, analyzations of what my eyes were like when I was ten.

After an hour, I finally saw the doctor. He was incredibly goodlooking. I'm intimidated by goodlooking doctors.

Well, he went over every aspect of my eyes. I'm profoundly near sighted (as if I didn't know). My severe astigmatism improved (!) over the years. My retinas look good - - considering I had emergency retina surgery on both eyes years ago (that's another horrifying story I could tell).

He suddenly slipped into the bad news mode. I have cataracts in both eyes. Will get worse, of course. Surgery is recomended. He said that new glasses won't help me. The surgery will improve my vision so drastically that I most likely won't need glasses.

I'm skeptical. Never heard of such a thing. Tempting, but.....is this a scam? Everyone I know has had cataract surgery. Was everyone talked into it??

I listened carefully to his pitch.

He was hustling me like a two bit barker at Coney Island.

He was persuasive. He was damn cute. He could have sold me beach front property in Kansas.

I acquiesed. I submitted myself to him completely.

(I'm being funny...?)

I'll get the surgery. Against my better judgement.

I don't know how the hell I get into these things. Why why why isn't life simple anymore??

Presently, I have no clue when or where the surgery will take place. Definitely out of town. Possibly in Cookeville.

So what else is new?

I have too many ailments to mention. My back, hip, legs. The edema has nearly vanished. Blood pressure is good. My blood work fluxuates. I'm supposedly dehydrated. I am extremely anemic. I'll skip the other things. 

I finally received the new charger for my cell phone after two weeks. I desperately needed it.

I plan to order some new clothes so I won't look like the grim reaper next time I go out. If I ever go out.

Jon, never exactly seeing clearly

❤️

What are your thoughts concerning cataract surgery?