This is a bad day and time to write for this blog. Lovely and I just returned from a shopping spree at the grocery store. It may just be my imagination, but the prices of everything keep going higher and higher. I wasn’t long ago that we were amazed that the bill was up to a hundred dollars. Today, we topped out at $199.61. Lovely continues to feel like it is her fault for being extravagant. I reminded her that she came with a short list, but I piled too much stuff into the basket myself. “Maybe when Trump becomes president he will get the prices down,” she said. I went into old guy story mode and told her about the last time we had inflation like this was in the nineteen eighties when Jimmy Carter was president. At that time the prices never went down and they won’t this time either. The damage has been done. The government led by his excellency Joe Biden has spent money he didn’t have and now we are paying for it with inflation.
To get my mind off the predicament, I took a back road home through a section of Frankfort to see a new house being built on a five-acre tract, and the one house takes up half of it. Clearly, this family does not have money issues. The owner happens to be related to the local concrete delivery service. They are new to the community, and the man of the house is already running for Mayor. The mansion is at least twelve thousand square feet in size. The family has five older daughters and I figure they must need a lot of closet space.
Yesterday, I finally arrived at the eye doctor’s office on the correct day and time. I was ushered into one of the exam rooms and waited while a young lady put eye drops into my left eye to enable her to measure eye pressure, then another drop to dilate the eye for the doctor. I played my phone game while I waited. Eventually, I was ushered into the laser lab and directed to sit in a specific chair. I resumed my game. The doctor entered, and I was shocked. I have grandchildren that are older than this guy. “You’ve had this procedure performed on the right eye in July, so you know how it goes right?” “Yes I do, let’s get it over with.”
The last doctor who did this was now retired and happily spending his fortune doing nothing. The doctor sat opposite me and told me to rest my chin on the rest and move my forehead into the brace. “Look at the red light.” I happily looked at the tiny LED bulb suspended above his left ear. The procedure began. Pop, pop, pop—he was killing this unwanted membrane between my lens and good vision. After about ten pops, he would say, “Blink,” and then go back to pop, pop, pop, pop. I could hear him moving the laser from spot to spot and pulling the trigger at each point. It couldn’t have taken longer than five minutes for him to finish. I looked at him and said, “why did I get the impression that you were playing a video game?” “Yes,” he said, “it is a lot like a video game, I’ll see you in a month.” He ushered me to the exit.
After it was over, I opened my left eye and saw nothing but blackness. Is this what it feels like to be blind? I wondered. When I reached the exit, my vision was as good as when I had walked in. Twenty-four hours later, my left eye is seeing sharp and crisp words. Now, I can get some new glasses to correct my astigmatism.
Filed under: Aging, Biography, health care | Tagged: Astigamtism, Cataracts, Vision Clarity | 2 Comments »
