Friends,
So I went to the Kaiser optometrist on Friday afternoon, and that went as well as you imagine it might. As you probably know, the Kaiser optometrist is the gatekeeper for the ophthalmologist, so I got to see Dr. Optometrist first. (the guy’s last name sure was foreshadowing his future profession. – ed Thanks for stopping by, chief.)
I thought it was strange that there was no real wait time and I could get in right away because, as it turns out, they really want to sell you glasses.
Glasses.
And glasses.
“How long have you had those glasses?” The good doctor’s receptionist asked. “I’m really here to have a doctor see what large thing in my ocular cavity is causing me this great discomfort.” Because, you see, my eyeballs have been dry and painful and red and furious for at least a week.
“So you want a dilation then? We can’t check your vision and do the dilation though. It’ll have to be one or the other.”
Now the gatekeeping was starting to wear thin. “Neither of those things have ‘doctor finding foreign matter and removing it’ in the sentence,” I growled. “I’ll let the doctor know.”
And what he really wanted to do was to sell me glasses, so we went through the exam until he finally said, “You’ve been awfully quiet. Is there a problem?”
“Yes. My eyes really hurt. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that they’re bright red right now from the irritation. There’s probably something in there and I hope you can find it.”
Nope. I got a referral to the ophthalmologist though, which is almost as good.
More later on this, but I should get back to the filling in the blanks series. There’s an awful lot of ground to cover and I’m not breaking any records covering it. Soon!
Your pal,
– bob