Some coffee with your humble pie?

[Flea]

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.

 

[l_uk3y]

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.

 

[Tez3]

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.

 

[Flea]

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.