Rambling with Ann

By ANN WORTHINGTON

It was that time of year again, and my husband and I decided to make a whole day out of this adventure.

It was time to have my eyes checked for another year, so we left for Wilmington very early in the morning in order to get in a little shopping before my doctor’s appointment because I knew what kind of experience I had in store for me.

We lived up to the old saying of shop ‘til we drop, and after a snack for lunch, we headed to the doctor’s office where I soon was on my way for a long afternoon.

The technician took me to a room, placed me behind a machine and expected me to read letters that looked like fuzzy scrambled eggs or small, black number ones.

I finally convinced her of this, and she took me to another room. I almost placed both feet and arms on either side of the door and hoped she couldn’t pry them loose, because this is the visual field test nightmare. I knew the lady there would slap some kind of harness on my head and put a patch over one eye. She would place my forehead and chin at a certain angle, turn out the lights and expect me to stare at a little tiny yellow dot in the middle of a big, white tank.

I had something in my hand to click each time I saw a light flash anywhere inside the tank without moving my eye from that dasted little yellow dot or moving any part of my body. That’s where the going gets tough.

The minute the technician gets me ready and I’m looking into that tank, sure enough I have to scratch my nose, my leg, I need a drink of water or just twitch somewhere. After about what seems like hours, actually 15 minutes for each eye, I’m whisked off to another room where I receive the worst of all – the dilating drops.

In a few minutes, the whole world, including people, are interestingly covered with fuzzy clothing and skin.
Everything in the world, especially flowers, blend together until your eyes can focus enough to know what you’re looking at.

Now that my eyes are playing all kinds of tricks on me, I’m placed in front of another machine that has large circles in the middle with red lights and a tiny green light on the side. Something is turning around and around and suddenly a light snaps and I am momentarily blind. What a bummer that was.

Thank goodness my eyesight returned quickly or I would have panicked sure enough. After about six of these nightmarish photos, I was finally placed in a room to see the doctor and thankfully given the good news that my eye problems were no worse.

I could hardly wait to leave that place because it was almost dark. I planned to look at all the beautiful Christmas decorations on my ride home.

Remember I said my eyes were dilated. The only thing I saw were the largest halos I had ever seen from a zillion cars. I couldn’t see the markings on the highway and all the decorations seemed to run together. I finally gave up, laid my head back, and with much gratefulness, enjoyed the fact that I had a wonderful husband to drive me home.

However, I’m thankful for the advancement in medicine, and if it weren’t for the good care of my doctor, I probably would have gone blind.

As always, until next time, may God bless you all in a special way.