One Angry Monkey

I finally went and had an eye exam today. Boy, optometry has changed in the last ten or so years. Before I went in the receptionist did some preliminary tests, one of which was (unless I’m mistaken) a glaucoma test. That’s where they test your eyeball pressure. The last time I had one of those I was still in high school. Back then what they did was spray some anesthetic into my eye and press this thing against it. I hated it at the time.

What happened today made me long for the good old days of numbing spray and big blue light-things. What they do now, at least where I went, is get you to look at a flashing green light and then they blast a jet of air into your eye. Into. Your. Eye. And if you flinch they have to keep doing it because if you flinch they can’t get a reading. What I want to know is this; who could have a blast of air to the eye and not flinch?

As it turns out I’m even more skittish than most people when it comes to having jets of air blasting at my eyeball. After five failed attempts on each eye (before you reach for the calculator, that’s 10 in total) she finally gave up. I wiped the tears from my face and stumbled after the optometrist. Everything went well. I discovered I can’t see squat through my right eye even with my glasses on, and my left isn’t much better. Guess those headaches aren’t so mysterious after all. Then came the really really fun part — a check of general eye health. That’s where they shine a really bright light in your eye, then put up a magnifying glass to make it even brighter. It took quite some time before I managed to blink away the after-effects of that. Ever looked directly at the sun for more than a couple of seconds? It was like that.

Long story short, take care of your eyes or your optometrist will blind you himself.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 27th, 2008 at 6:15 pm and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.