Another Tango With the Eye Doctor
Apparently more people read this column than I thought. Which is good. But apparently more people who work at my ophthalmologist’s office—and about whom I wrote several months ago—read this column. Which is bad. How do I know? Silly me, I went back to see them.
No contact problems this time. It was worse than that: pink eye. Getting pink eye was particularly worrisome to me for a couple of reasons. First, I have contacts, and I didn’t know if a conjunctivitis diagnosis meant I would have to get a new lens for the tainted eye. Second, I’m a woman, which means eye make-up comes into play. Would I have to get rid of my entire stash of mascaras, lash curlers, shadows, liners, etc? Costly, any way you look at it.
I arrived for my emergency appointment and told the woman behind the desk the reason for the visit. I was informed that a lot of people come into the office thinking they have pink eye, when what they really have is simple allergies. I was pretty sure I knew the difference between allergies and pink eye, and I told her so. She responded with a breezy, “We’ll see.” I was ultimately diagnosed with—say it with me now—pink eye. Score one for the feeble-minded lay person.
Leading me back to the exam area, I assumed I would just get my eye looked at, receive information about how to make the pink eye go away, pay through the nose for the visit, and be on my way. Nope. First I had to do a sight test. No problem. But then came THE PRONOUNCEMENT: I had to have a glaucoma test. This left me without a doubt that not only had they seen my rants about them, but they were not amused.
This woman wouldn’t budge—despite my pointing out that the chances of someone my age having glaucoma are very slim, especially considering I had a glaucoma test a couple of months ago. No dice. That test stood between getting treated for pink eye and being left to wander the streets with my red-rimmed peeper. If I had known then what I know now—that the treatment for pink eye is to do absolutely nothing—I would have told her what she could do with that puff of air she was threatening me with.
Not knowing this, however, I submitted. She told me to put my chin here and my forehead there, and she got ready to shoot. Alarmed, I said, “I have my contacts in.”
“Mm-hmm,” was her absent reply, still lining up my eye for the assault.
“Don’t you think I should take them out before you blast pressurized air onto my eyeball?” I asked.
Her head popped up from behind the machine, a panicked look on her face. “Oh. Oh, yes.”
Which led us to problem number two. There are two popular lines of contact lens care: Boston and Bausch & Lomb. I’m allergic to the Boston line, a fact that’s been on my chart since I started wearing contacts 15 years ago. Still, when she shuffled me into a room designed for contact fittings and offered me the Boston product of my choice, I can’t say I was overly surprised.
I inquired about the availability of Bausch & Lomb but was told the office didn’t stock it. “If you’ll notice, on my chart it says I’m allergic to Boston,” I pointed out. “I can’t take my lenses out with Boston.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I haven’t seen your chart,” she said.
Noticing the file folder in her hands that had my name scribbled across it in big, bold letters, I asked, “Aren’t you holding my chart?”
After all of the ado, there was, in fact, nothing the doctor could do. “It’s like having a cold in your eye. I could give you antibiotic drops, but it wouldn’t do any good,” he explained. Which, of course, made me wonder why he offered them in the first place.
The upshot was that I got to wear my glasses for 10 days while the “cold” went away. Despite polite contradictions from loved ones, I really do look atrocious in my glasses, and to top it off, they’re about half the strength of my contacts. On the first day of my sentence, I drove over a rather large curb, prompting a demand from my passenger to take over at the wheel. On the second day, I ran straight into a wall at my office. There’s really no good explanation for that.
So now I need new glasses. I should probably find another eye doctor, but, frankly, I’m just too lazy. Plus, I’m kind of curious to see what can possibly go wrong during a quest for new glasses. TPW
No contact problems this time. It was worse than that: pink eye. Getting pink eye was particularly worrisome to me for a couple of reasons. First, I have contacts, and I didn’t know if a conjunctivitis diagnosis meant I would have to get a new lens for the tainted eye. Second, I’m a woman, which means eye make-up comes into play. Would I have to get rid of my entire stash of mascaras, lash curlers, shadows, liners, etc? Costly, any way you look at it.
I arrived for my emergency appointment and told the woman behind the desk the reason for the visit. I was informed that a lot of people come into the office thinking they have pink eye, when what they really have is simple allergies. I was pretty sure I knew the difference between allergies and pink eye, and I told her so. She responded with a breezy, “We’ll see.” I was ultimately diagnosed with—say it with me now—pink eye. Score one for the feeble-minded lay person.
Leading me back to the exam area, I assumed I would just get my eye looked at, receive information about how to make the pink eye go away, pay through the nose for the visit, and be on my way. Nope. First I had to do a sight test. No problem. But then came THE PRONOUNCEMENT: I had to have a glaucoma test. This left me without a doubt that not only had they seen my rants about them, but they were not amused.
This woman wouldn’t budge—despite my pointing out that the chances of someone my age having glaucoma are very slim, especially considering I had a glaucoma test a couple of months ago. No dice. That test stood between getting treated for pink eye and being left to wander the streets with my red-rimmed peeper. If I had known then what I know now—that the treatment for pink eye is to do absolutely nothing—I would have told her what she could do with that puff of air she was threatening me with.
Not knowing this, however, I submitted. She told me to put my chin here and my forehead there, and she got ready to shoot. Alarmed, I said, “I have my contacts in.”
“Mm-hmm,” was her absent reply, still lining up my eye for the assault.
“Don’t you think I should take them out before you blast pressurized air onto my eyeball?” I asked.
Her head popped up from behind the machine, a panicked look on her face. “Oh. Oh, yes.”
Which led us to problem number two. There are two popular lines of contact lens care: Boston and Bausch & Lomb. I’m allergic to the Boston line, a fact that’s been on my chart since I started wearing contacts 15 years ago. Still, when she shuffled me into a room designed for contact fittings and offered me the Boston product of my choice, I can’t say I was overly surprised.
I inquired about the availability of Bausch & Lomb but was told the office didn’t stock it. “If you’ll notice, on my chart it says I’m allergic to Boston,” I pointed out. “I can’t take my lenses out with Boston.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I haven’t seen your chart,” she said.
Noticing the file folder in her hands that had my name scribbled across it in big, bold letters, I asked, “Aren’t you holding my chart?”
After all of the ado, there was, in fact, nothing the doctor could do. “It’s like having a cold in your eye. I could give you antibiotic drops, but it wouldn’t do any good,” he explained. Which, of course, made me wonder why he offered them in the first place.
The upshot was that I got to wear my glasses for 10 days while the “cold” went away. Despite polite contradictions from loved ones, I really do look atrocious in my glasses, and to top it off, they’re about half the strength of my contacts. On the first day of my sentence, I drove over a rather large curb, prompting a demand from my passenger to take over at the wheel. On the second day, I ran straight into a wall at my office. There’s really no good explanation for that.
So now I need new glasses. I should probably find another eye doctor, but, frankly, I’m just too lazy. Plus, I’m kind of curious to see what can possibly go wrong during a quest for new glasses. TPW