# Some coffee with your humble pie?



## Flea (Dec 23, 2009)

I had to laugh at myself a little today.

I got an eye exam, my first in several years.  When he put in the drops?  It stressed me out.  I flinched. I winced. I held tissues over my eyes for a good few minutes.  I _hate_ having my face get messed with!

And then it dawned on me ... I've been doing a year of stress inoculation, going out of my way to have people punch me, slap me, grab at my nostrils and ears, and pull my hair.  I guess I need more work, eh?  :uhyeah:

Of course the payoff came after I left, as dark came on.  I didn't want to drive home immediately, so I just walked around downtown.  Each street light, each business sign radiated like a star and it was the most _beautiful_ thing I'd ever seen in my life.  All the more so with so many Christmas displays.  It was really magical.

And my vision is still nearly perfect at 20/30.  All in all, a wildly successful afternoon.


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## l_uk3y (Dec 23, 2009)

I'm with you on that one. I always hated anything near my face although i can deal with that much better now. Even now though anything around my eyes. No Way. Cant stand it. I think it is only natural and probably a good thing to be defensive of them. I could not imagine blindness, and I hope i never have to.


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## Tez3 (Dec 24, 2009)

Did you have the thing where they puff air into your eyes too? I hate that! I'm terribly short sighted, I've worn glasses since I was eleven but six years ago my optician put contacts in for the first time and it was like a miracle. Being able to see without glasses is amazing and every day I bless the contact lens inventors and makers.


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## Flea (Dec 24, 2009)

l_uk3y said:


> I'm with you on that one. I always hated anything near my face although i can deal with that much better now. Even now though anything around my eyes. No Way. Cant stand it. I think it is only natural and probably a good thing to be defensive of them. I could not imagine blindness, and I hope i never have to.



I have a good friend who's legally blind, and he's had several surgeries to keep him at a certain level of functionality.  He's also a seasoned MA; I should ask him his thoughts on this.  It sounds like a conversation with interesting potential.

At the risk of hijacking my own thread, the optometrist told me something interesting during the exam.  They were running a special $1 exam, no purchase necessary, and people were coming out of the woodwork for it  (myself included; I hadn't been checked out since 2001.)  He told me about one woman who said she had gone blind in one eye for several weeks a year before but couldn't afford to get to a doctor for it.  So she let it slide for almost year until she saw the ad for this special.  

It doesn't surprise me at all.  Very few insurance carriers that I know of cover eye or dental care, and virtually no carriers cover any kind of preventive care worth a damn.  That, and all the residential areas surrounding this clinic are very poor.  So a lot of people have no other option.  The optometrist didn't seem to have thought of that; when I mentioned it he conceded the point.

We'll see what changes with that situation, if anything, over the next few months.


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