Since the majority of our GMT Nation Members are not “Older Than Dirt...” they can skip reading this thread entirely… but for anyone past the age of 50… this one might interest you in a very significant manner:
Two months ago… I decided to venture out to a local Target Optical Center and have my usual 3-5 year check-up trying to spy any signs of Diabetic Retinopathy which can lead to complete blindness. After looking into a goofy machine that was a PPITA (that’s a Pure Pain In The Ass) to use and obtaining a perfunctory look-see from the Optometrist… She gave me the ostensible good news that my Type II Diabetes was still being well controlled… but that I’d have to get a fistful of different kinds of prescription glasses that involves the expected “Wallet Rape”. I thought… ‘So be it’. I got the lens prescriptions filled and the new frames and went off on my weary way. The one thing she had mentioned in passing was, “Oh, by the way… The lens in your left eye is a ‘Little Yellow’ ...so in the future, you might want to get tested for Glaucoma.”
Time passes… about two months worth almost to the day and in reflection, I must say that from the moment I walked out of the Target place… something was just not quite right about my vision. But having seen an “Expert”, I let it slide and just chalked it up to the Vagaries of Old Age. Trust me… you will have to learn to accept certain things later in your lives that you take for granted as always working perfectly when you’re young. But eventually, time and the tides will dissipate that perfection as your ‘human platform’ ages and wears out. And soon after … bad things may begin to happen that will elude your normal observation and detection abilities.
Two days ago, I was trying to catch up here in the wee morning hours and no matter what I did to clear my vision… no matter where I looked with my right eye closed… a persistent, moving wave propagated along the edges of anything I viewed with horizontal straight lines. It is something akin to watching a series of Atlantic Ocean waves slowly making a rolling approach at Daytona Beach during low tide. I thought… “NOW... WTF?” This phenomena, coupled with persistent double vision was Scaring the Hell out of me and was very concerning.
The other weird visual artifact I noticed was that while typing even simple expressions, most of what was appearing on the screen looked like absolute Gibberish (no … NOT my usual Gibberish)… it was like my entire focal plane had shifted off several keys and what I was looking at on the keyboard … was NOT what my fingers were pressing and showing on screen. So that was the second “WTF… Why does everything I type look like it was done on a WWII era German Enigma Machine?” and that was the final straw that prompted me to take immediate action.
I called the local “St. Michael’s Eye & Laser Institute” in Largo, Florida and after setting my expectations at the lowest possible level, I was surprised to hear the kid on the phone say, “Sure… We can see you this afternoon… Can you be here at 2:30 PM?” I replied, “I’m half-way to your office… now.” The follow on skips all the in-between scenes that were very pleasant for a New Patient exposed to a myriad number of tests and specialty machines you would never imagine them having and now it comes to the point where I tell the Ophthalmologist, “You know this is weird… but I JUST had my eyes examined at Target Optical about two months ago.”
The man spun slowly around on his stool and after sliding closer to gaze with a squinted, ‘jaundiced eye’… he eye-balled me closely and asked, “Did they mention anything about you having Cataracts in Both Eyes?” I said “Nope.” He continued to probe the other more serious issues of the “wavy lines” by asking, “Did they tell you that you have a tear in the membrane under your Retina in the Left Eye that has allowed the Vitreous Humor Jelly Center to pour into the opening and fill up that space ...lifting the Retina off the back side of eyeball?” I said, “Nope...”
He replied, “I’m sending you to our Retina Expert right away… tomorrow morning, I mean. You will need to have Cataract Surgery before we can try and repair that membrane tear and snip out that invading material that is acting like a basket of loose socks has been stuffed under a throw rug; hence causing the Retina to become wrinkled and shifting up and down to produce that “wavy line” effect in your vision.” I said, “Will Do, Doctor… and I cannot Thank You enough for seeing me on such short notice. He smiled and said, “No Problem… Now... if I can just get my wife to stop yelling at me for ruining our dinner tonight...” When I left a few minutes later… the office had already closed up and so I discovered that he really had inconvenienced himself by staying quite late to deal with my situation. You just cannot ask to get better help under dire circumstances than that.
The Moral of The Story is THIS:
If you are a Mature Man or Woman… Leave the Target and other similar Basic Eye Glass Purchasing places to the younger generation(s)… and seek out the help of the REAL Vision Professionals with all of their modern equipment necessary to do a proper and revealing diagnosis. And so finally to quote Jake from The Blues Brothers, “I have SEEN THE LIGHT!” about doing all of this with Proper Eye Care Specialists.
Two months ago… I decided to venture out to a local Target Optical Center and have my usual 3-5 year check-up trying to spy any signs of Diabetic Retinopathy which can lead to complete blindness. After looking into a goofy machine that was a PPITA (that’s a Pure Pain In The Ass) to use and obtaining a perfunctory look-see from the Optometrist… She gave me the ostensible good news that my Type II Diabetes was still being well controlled… but that I’d have to get a fistful of different kinds of prescription glasses that involves the expected “Wallet Rape”. I thought… ‘So be it’. I got the lens prescriptions filled and the new frames and went off on my weary way. The one thing she had mentioned in passing was, “Oh, by the way… The lens in your left eye is a ‘Little Yellow’ ...so in the future, you might want to get tested for Glaucoma.”
Time passes… about two months worth almost to the day and in reflection, I must say that from the moment I walked out of the Target place… something was just not quite right about my vision. But having seen an “Expert”, I let it slide and just chalked it up to the Vagaries of Old Age. Trust me… you will have to learn to accept certain things later in your lives that you take for granted as always working perfectly when you’re young. But eventually, time and the tides will dissipate that perfection as your ‘human platform’ ages and wears out. And soon after … bad things may begin to happen that will elude your normal observation and detection abilities.
Two days ago, I was trying to catch up here in the wee morning hours and no matter what I did to clear my vision… no matter where I looked with my right eye closed… a persistent, moving wave propagated along the edges of anything I viewed with horizontal straight lines. It is something akin to watching a series of Atlantic Ocean waves slowly making a rolling approach at Daytona Beach during low tide. I thought… “NOW... WTF?” This phenomena, coupled with persistent double vision was Scaring the Hell out of me and was very concerning.
The other weird visual artifact I noticed was that while typing even simple expressions, most of what was appearing on the screen looked like absolute Gibberish (no … NOT my usual Gibberish)… it was like my entire focal plane had shifted off several keys and what I was looking at on the keyboard … was NOT what my fingers were pressing and showing on screen. So that was the second “WTF… Why does everything I type look like it was done on a WWII era German Enigma Machine?” and that was the final straw that prompted me to take immediate action.
I called the local “St. Michael’s Eye & Laser Institute” in Largo, Florida and after setting my expectations at the lowest possible level, I was surprised to hear the kid on the phone say, “Sure… We can see you this afternoon… Can you be here at 2:30 PM?” I replied, “I’m half-way to your office… now.” The follow on skips all the in-between scenes that were very pleasant for a New Patient exposed to a myriad number of tests and specialty machines you would never imagine them having and now it comes to the point where I tell the Ophthalmologist, “You know this is weird… but I JUST had my eyes examined at Target Optical about two months ago.”
The man spun slowly around on his stool and after sliding closer to gaze with a squinted, ‘jaundiced eye’… he eye-balled me closely and asked, “Did they mention anything about you having Cataracts in Both Eyes?” I said “Nope.” He continued to probe the other more serious issues of the “wavy lines” by asking, “Did they tell you that you have a tear in the membrane under your Retina in the Left Eye that has allowed the Vitreous Humor Jelly Center to pour into the opening and fill up that space ...lifting the Retina off the back side of eyeball?” I said, “Nope...”
He replied, “I’m sending you to our Retina Expert right away… tomorrow morning, I mean. You will need to have Cataract Surgery before we can try and repair that membrane tear and snip out that invading material that is acting like a basket of loose socks has been stuffed under a throw rug; hence causing the Retina to become wrinkled and shifting up and down to produce that “wavy line” effect in your vision.” I said, “Will Do, Doctor… and I cannot Thank You enough for seeing me on such short notice. He smiled and said, “No Problem… Now... if I can just get my wife to stop yelling at me for ruining our dinner tonight...” When I left a few minutes later… the office had already closed up and so I discovered that he really had inconvenienced himself by staying quite late to deal with my situation. You just cannot ask to get better help under dire circumstances than that.
The Moral of The Story is THIS:
If you are a Mature Man or Woman… Leave the Target and other similar Basic Eye Glass Purchasing places to the younger generation(s)… and seek out the help of the REAL Vision Professionals with all of their modern equipment necessary to do a proper and revealing diagnosis. And so finally to quote Jake from The Blues Brothers, “I have SEEN THE LIGHT!” about doing all of this with Proper Eye Care Specialists.
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