I am a coward

I finally finally dared to take an appointment with an opthalmologist for last  evening. After seven years. Yes, yes, dont ask. The opthalmologist to me is the equivalent of the dentist to most. I am squeamish about them eyes. Also helps that I am half blind and must pat the bedside table blindly for them spectacles every morning before I can greet the day. I love to live in the delusion that no, the eyes are now stable. The power has settled and will not migrate in any such direction and the contact lenses can be continued on indefinitely without needing to be changed. Yes, I am that delusional.

But then strange things began happening. I began squinting at fine print. I began holding items at supermarkets at varying distances in order to figure out costs. I once misread a face cream for being 3 hundred something which when billed turned out to be 800 something. Naturally, I returned home and booked said appointment with eye specialist without further delay.

Like I prefer to deal with doctor’s appointments, I went on my own. Not a good idea. The medieval torture chamber? Blasts of air into your eyes to measure something. Drops to dilate your pupils resulting in a situation when you finally open your eyes all you can see is a fairytale realm you’ve been teleported to with lights shining all around in warm fuzzy glowing balls, and the eye specialist seeming like the dim hazy alien aboard the mothership strapping you down for experiment conducting purpose. You must remember that without them spectacles I am half blind anyway. A face which is not at the tip of my nose is unclear in regular times, with eyes dilated I walked the careful heavy walk of one who couldnt really figure out where her foot was landing. As I entered the building elderly personages flitting in and out of the lobby shrivelled me with stern disapproving stares for daring to be swaying drunk before the sun had even set.

The conclusion of said check up, a stern finger wagging and polite lecture about the ridiculous years of a gap between eye check ups.  The ideal is once a year said the doctor, not once a decade. I squirmed in apology on the chair. The number strangely enough has reduced itself. So here I am squinting through spectacles and contact lenses of a higher power than the one I require. And I left with a song in my heart about the possibility of waking up and not being as blind as a bat with the wonderful new revolutionary technology called Lasik which ofcourse has been around for yonks, but scaredy cat me has been looking every which way but an eye doctor’s clinic to gather the courage to get done.

Am lathering on the sob story to the husband to convince him to fund the process. God willing and the good wishes of you, dear reader, I will find myself at the eye specialist for a record twice in a single year and get said surgery done within the month.

Now if only the image of something attacking my cornea with a light saber can be dismissed easily…