The Eye of the Storm

The Eye Clinic was the appointment of the day,  proceed to the "green" waiting area for your 1:30 appointment.  We were taken right in which led us to finding out that  prisms were the answer or at least an aide in helping with the double vision.  Since I don't normally wear glasses, they could only fit the sunglasses in my purse with the prism lens.   I was told to go and get a pair of glasses (without any prescription) and bring them back and she would fit the lens to those. I guess I'm going shopping!!!  It is actually amazing how the prism works, allowing my vision to realign so I no longer see double.  The key is to figure out how to keep my head straight again, it's been 9 weeks with this styl'n head tilt.  What we were told today is that the damage to the nerve during surgery could take up to 6 months to heal.  She has seen it take as long as 1 year but "usually" where you end up at the 6 month mark is what you are going to have.  Ugh!!!

Next to see the opthamologist..off to the RED waiting area..and waiting area it is...with eyes dilated, we wait, and wait and wait.   One person left in anger due to the long wait, people come in, people leave, I wait.  The "red" waiting room is starting to make me red with anger.  This is the longest I've been out for any medical appointment since my surgery and I'm exhausted.  We continue to wait, another person leaves in anger.  Finally with only three people, me being one of them, in the waiting room...it's now 4:30 I ask, "have I been forgotten"..."oh no it's just a busy clinic day, we are double booked all week because it's a short week"  I loose it, I go all brain tumour on them..."Not my problem" I say..."this is unacceptable, I've just had brain surgery"  The response was, your next...um there is only one person in the waiting room and he's waiting for his wife so ahhhh yeah no kidding I'm next. I was then told how lucky I was to have both appointments on the same day....believe me I think to myself there is nothing "lucky" about any of this.  I then get apologies that they didn't know I just had brain surgery blah blah blah, that's when I really go all brain tumour on them..."it's right there in my chart, she was reading the report at 1:30 while testing my eyes."  It's at that moment when I realize that the "green" section doesn't communicate with the "red" section.  Out comes the Dr and I hold nothing back, I am a very unhappy health care user at this point.  He is very calm, very apologetic and has definite empathy for my situation.  He completes all his tests and basically says the same thing as the 1:30 appointment.  However, we will see you in a couple of months to retest your eyes, to see if they can change the prisms.

Grrr I am mad, mad with a capital M, I'm hungry, I'm tired and I am for sure cranky!!!!  We leave at 5pm 3.5 hours after we started.  If maybe they prepared you for an afternoon wait.  I would have at least brought food, like the other couple did, they have obviously done this gig before.  So I continue on my rant creating a storm on anger inside of me.  As we leave and go through the cafeteria, there walking towards me is a blind man with his seeing eye dog.  I stare at him, as we walk past him he asks for someone to help him, and I immediately turn around asking him what he needed.  A lady working the cafeteria comes to his aid.  This is when I turn to TJay and say, if that is not a sign from God telling me to shut up and be grateful I don't know what is!!!
The man with his seeing eye dog is my "eye of the storm" the moment when everything goes still and calm, and he doesn't even know it.. So thank you kind soul for making me realize once again that all of this as crappy as it is, can always be worse.  That I can weather this storm, with both good days and bad.