An Eye for an Eye

I've always been fortunate in having good eye sight. It helps when doing survey work. And because I use my eyes a lot for work purposes I can get an eye test on expenses every couple of years. A couple of years had passed recently, and as if to emphasise the point I was contacted by Boots Opticians offering me a half price eye test, so I booked myself in for a check up.

I arrived to be greeted by a lady with a forced smile that reeked of low job satisfaction. She ushered me straight in to a side room where she could perform a variety of facial tortures on me. I was asked a series of questions regarding my last check up, whether I had any problems since then, and what my general health was like currently. Presumably she was not happy with my answers as she then insisted that I place my chin on a device that looked like a head brace and strapped me in while manoeuvring a small light to within three millimetres of my left eye. Having informed me she was going to test my eye pressure, she fired a tiny burst of air into my eye that was similar to having a sparrow sneeze in my face from close range. Not content with the left eye, the right eye was then subjected to the same fate. Then I had to spot tiny flashes of light in my peripheral vision whilst shouting out numbers, like when you think you've spotted a shooting star out of the corner of your eye. After this she attached me to another machine, via the same chin strap head brace as before, that was apparently going to photograph my eye. This time instead of a gust of well-directed air there was a bright flash that left me temporarily blinded. She took advantage of my momentary incapacitation to attack my other eye, leaving me disorientated and stumbling for the exit. Hoping that the test was over, I was then asked to regain my composure and informed that the optician would be with me shortly.

Having just about recovered the optician then dragged me into another side room, this one dark and menacing. Various instruments of death lay scattered across the desk and walls. I was forced to wear a pair of specs that made me look like Harry Potter, while she fiddled with assorted accessories for the lenses. When asked to read the lowest line on the board I struggled through the letters and then tried to remember the same sequence for the other eye. Then the red circles were brighter than the green circles, then about the same, then the line was to the left of the dot, then to the right. Confusion reigned. Various lenses were added and removed from the specs, whilst the line of questioning became increasingly aggressive. Finally, fed up of my indecision, she reached for a tiny light and moved in for the kill, bringing her head right up towards mine before bobbing it like an owl in each direction and asking me to look into the corners of the room as if the answers would be found in the whites of my eyes. My (optic) nerve held firm and finally, in a fit of desperation, she asked me to read from a book whilst it moved slowly towards my face.

Having found no evidence to suggest that I needed glasses imminently, she wrote notes on her computer and dispatched me with the bill to the front desk, where the boots opticians synchronised swimming team were happy to pretend to be happy to help me. Half-price eye torture courtesy of the RSPB: see you again in two years!  

Hospital

I recently had the pleasure of getting a foot injury. And though I tried to shake it off the discomfort was still forcing me to hobble along like John Wayne after a week, so I spoke to my doctor who advised me to get an X-ray at A&E. The advantage of planning a visit to A&E is that you can search for the least busy time – just after the morning rush and before people have had long enough in the day to damage themselves, play sport or get drunk. I even had time to organise the laptop so I could work if I got stuck there for hours. So I turned up wondering who else I would be competing with. It’s a great game to play, guessing what is wrong with everyone else.

There was another chap there who looked uninjured when sitting down. He was dressed like a charity collector, with clipboard, charity top and name badge. I wondered whether he was actually on an ill-thought-through charity drive. Nobody donated, nor did he approach anyone asking for money, so I guess not.  At least three people had limps. That seemed to be the most common injury, but that’s only based on being able to spot a limp, whereas an arm or internal injury can sometimes be hidden from view. I think a couple of the limpers had nothing wrong with their legs at all but had developed an ailment in order to fit in with the rest of the patients. I guess nobody in A&E wants to be the one who looks fit and healthy. Bringing a laptop did not help my cause. If anyone asks I’ll say I dropped it on my foot.

Aside from feeling judged by the other patients, you also get to feel judged by the staff. Not that they were worried, but I felt the need to apologise for being a week late to get the X-ray. And then I was given the form that you have to fill in for social science that asks you to confess your  average weekly alcohol intake. I wonder if there is an official adjustment factor that accounts for the fact that everybody errs on the side of caution when ticking the relevant (or possibly irrelevant) box. Nobody would overestimate the amount they drink, and the justification for our lower than accurate answers comes from knowing that there was once a week, at some point several years ago, when you went without alcohol entirely, probably because you were seriously ill or residing in Saudi Arabia, and therefore that week must drag the average down to a level you deem acceptable even though it probably still qualifies you to attend AA meetings free on the NHS.

When it came to being X-rayed, the foot had to be flat, so I got to sit on a bed with my knees up and my injured appendage beneath the laser machine of diagnosis. The radiographer gave me some form of heavy blanket to position between my legs, which was slightly unnerving. Presumably it prevents nasty X-ray beams from attacking my sensitive parts and stopping me from having children. I would have thought that protecting my head might have been equally important, not least in allowing me to make that choice for myself, but no blanket was forthcoming.

When the X-ray was done, I was directed into the area marked ‘Minors’. This seemed preferable to being lead into the area labelled ‘Majors’. I was shown to a cubicle and told that there was nothing they could do for me, basically because there was nothing wrong with me. Whilst here I was induced to ponder that age old question ‘What is a shin?’. Is it bone? Is it hard tissue? Why is it so hard? What does it do? Answers on a postcard please.