Another Day Another Doctor

Another little problem creeps up on me, requiring a visit to the ophthalmologist (that's one of the big words I know with four consecutive consonants).

At the office, a modern one in a glass-fronted medical building in the heart of downtown, the receptionists are several, and all are busy. Not efficiently busy, but busily busy with businesslike busyness.

The office has eight doctors, of which it appears four are partners, and the other four are not. The partners are middle-aged Anglo and Jewish males, the non-partners are younger Asian women. The receptionists and billing clerks are mainly Latina and Asian women in their twenties and thirties. Please do not read anything into the demographics of this office, which is a real money-maker with its attached optical shop selling designer frames and specialty lenses. At least they have not yet, I don't think, outsourced anything to South Asia.

One of the receptionists eventually takes my medical insurance identification card for photocopying, and tells me to take a seat. Over there. I do. The magazines on the large coffee table in the reception area are the current crop. I pick up the March issue of the National Geographic. Immediately after I settle into a chair to look at Viktor Yushchenko's dioxin-damaged face, and start reading about the problems in the Ukraine, a pregnant nurse calls out my name and asks for my glasses.

I put the magazine down, get up, hand her my glasses, and blindly follow her vague waddle into one of the inner exam rooms.

Soon a Chinese woman doctor comes in to do the refraction (which, incidentally, my insurance does not cover, and has to be paid for in cash or plastic before I leave).

Hands me a black plastic paddle. Cover your left eye. Can you read this?

Yes.

Now, cover your right eye. What's the smallest text you can read?

E-Z-P-O.

Swings the swivelling multi-lensed machine over my face. I position my eyes at the eyepieces. She clicks once. That's one. Clicks again. That's two.

No response.

She tries again. One, two. Which one is clearer?

Two.

Another two clicks: One and two, which one's better?

One.

Again, one, two.

And so it goes for about fifteen sets of one-two's, until I tell her that there's no difference between one and two.

Turns out my eyesight has not changed since last year.
Eyedrops to dilate the pupils, then she sends me out to the waiting area. It takes about twenty minutes for the drops to do their stuff.

Eventually I am summoned back to be examined by one of the partner doctors. Gives me the glaucoma test, the bright white light lasering into my eye while I try to focus without blinking, on the tip of his nose.

I tell him about the little bump I see on my right eyeball, near the tearduct. He checks it out.

Is it bothering you? he asks.

Not really.

He does not think it's anything to worry about. If it gets bigger or starts bothering me, then I am to see him again. Shakes my hand, leads me to the payment desk. Latina clerk takes my credit card.

I go out into the street. The day is sunny and seems extra brilliant. But that's only because my pupils are still dilated from those eyedrops.