Bedside Manner

I grew up with people whose general attitude toward health care went like this: why go to the doctor? You're either going to find out you're fine, in which case you spent money for nothing or you're going to find out you're dying, in which case you spent money for nothing. So while I have transcended that attitude somewhat, it still takes me a while to get around to making my regular appointments for the things one should regularly have checked out. Consequently, I went to an eye appointment yesterday that was only about a year over due but more to the point, I was motivated not so much by caring for my eyes as the fact that I was out of contact lenses.

Eye appointments are very low on the list of "doctor visits about which one gets nervous". The worst thing they do to you is dilate your eyes. I did flunk my peripheral vision test but that's just because my right eye is so dominant it made my left eye want to blank out but now that I know the work around for that we'll try again and all will be well. So we're going along and it's all, "your eyesight is actually improving...you still have astigmatism (which, btw, isn't anywhere near as exciting as stigmata)...do you want to try multifocal lenses so you don't have to use readers...and then all a sudden the doc is all freaked out.

"You have a very large floater in your left eye. Does it bother you?"

"A what?"

"A floater". Which she then had to explain to me. (I still don't understand it; I came away with the impression that I have a jelly fish behind my eye). "How often do you notice it?"

"Um, never?"

"Ever see flashes of light?"

"No."

She looked at me like I'd just declared Sarah Palin the brain trust of our time. "You don't notice anything? It's pretty big".

"No. I remember the doc last time mentioning I had one but I haven't noticed anything".

The doc was still bemused. She told me that typically they aren't a problem for people, that they aren't treated, etc. etc. but...

"You think it needs to be treated?"

"Well, there are risks with the procedure but this one is so big..."

"But if I don't even notice it what's the big deal?"

"Well, if they are big enough they can tug at the retina, sometimes causing it to detach".

WTH???????

We can all agree a detached retina would be a bad thing. But holy hell. Here I go, blithely along, doot doot doot di doot, not noticing the behemoth in my eye and all a sudden not only is it supposed to be impairing my vision, it could make me blind!


Who tells a person these things? Why couldn't she have just said something like, "Now when people get older their eyes change. Here are some things to look for. If you notice anything, especially, oh, say, flashes of light, you give me a call, 'k?" You know, just sort of lay it out there in a quiet, non-panicky way and see what happens.

But no.

So of course last night I was completely obsessed with my eye: "Oh, there it is again. I can see my little Floaty". And I'm pretty sure I saw one of those flashes she was talking about this morning. Freaked me the hell out.

Doctors just shouldn't tell me things like that. They just shouldn't.

Now I'm just saying lots of prayers to St. Lucy and looking on line for designer eye patches. Just in case.