Eye Spy
Order and routine provide an organized balance in my life that keeps me on an even keel, although there are times when I welcome a little spontaneity. When it comes to appointments however, a spontaneous rescheduling, especially one where I only receive a voicemail message to “inform me” that this is taking place, and not a person-to-person telephone call that allows me to interact and say “actually, that doesn’t work for me” isn’t one of those times. That being the case, when it happens I “go along, to get along” not because I’m a passive personality, but because it makes life easier. That was me this week. A stressful doctor’s appointment that I’d been thinking about for weeks on Tuesday and a rescheduled retina clinic appointment from the previous Friday moved to Wednesday. In retrospect I might have been better to ask the clinic for a new date. I’ll know better another time. Learning from my mistakes.
I like the retina doctor – young, funny, easy going. I don’t love the injections he often has to do in my eye because of spontaneous (there’s that word again) leaking behind the retina (like a tap that needs a new washer). The first time he explained the procedure I was reluctant but knew it needed to be done so I resigned myself. No waiting – he did it right then and there. Surprisingly it’s not painful – the numbing drops help a great deal. Quite often afterwards there is “bruising” and the white of the eye is beet red, as if I’ve gone a round or two in a boxing ring, but the bruising fades. Eventually.
The worst part of these appointments is reading the eye chart. Put puffs of air into my eyes. Check. Add drops to dilate the pupils? We’re good. Push my chin into the “cup” and press my forehead against the bar and take a scan of my eye? Uncomfortable but doable. Poke a needle into my eye? Easy. Read that eye chart as the print gets smaller? I freeze. It’s like taking a test I’m sure I’m going to fail. I feel performance pressure. And I’m doing it with my glasses ON, not off.
On a good day I can do this with no difficulty though towards the end it’s a crap shoot of guesswork - “it might be c, but it could be o.” I might just laugh and say “pass”. Yesterday the pressure of sitting in that chair, stressing myself over a few rows of letters becoming ever increasingly smaller, I wanted to get up out of the chair and leave. I felt myself becoming smaller with each attempt. I was sitting with a different young woman to the one who usually conducts this part of the appointment. She was polite but a bit condescending when after assessing one eye I told her I’d rather not do this today. She kept insisting, as if I were a toddler, trying to encourage me to take just one more bite of liver or brussels sprouts – “can you just try one, maybe the first letter or the one at the end?” That made me feel even smaller. My final, unfortunately emphatic response, just like a toddler, was a firm “no.”
It was at that moment that I realized how incredibly overwhelmed I was. The level of stress that I’d held in for weeks had run its course and the lowering of it left me feeling vulnerable and on edge. I apologized to that young woman for being difficult and unyielding, but it was my final answer, and I saw no need to put myself through further stress with the eye test.
“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” ~ Maya Angelou
There is a time to be compliant and I’m good with that. I tell technicians, nurses, doctors that if they need to move me or put me in a specific position they have my permission because it makes it easier for both of us. I don’t always look forward to the tests I need or what they involve but the necessity overrules any reluctance. It’s the small details, the simple things, like an eye test that can reduce me to a petulant outburst or tears. Or even saying “no, I don’t want to.” It’s a way to take control of a situation when I’ve felt things slipping out of my hands that might be bigger than I’m able to manage.
On a positive note, it turned out that I didn’t need an injection this time and I’m “free” for two months. I can laugh about this today, but I have an optometrist appointment next week. Another chance to get it right (or wrong), another tussle with an eye chart, this time without the benefit of my glasses. I’ll leave the toddler at home for this one.