in other news

I have now had my eyes dilated, so the good news is that I’m pretty sure I can get away with NOT doing it again for at least another four years. (They did not have the special picture-taking machine, sadly.) It was a weird experience in SO MANY ways.

1. The optometrist did not believe me that I had never had my eyes dilated before. I had to repeat this multiple times, and even then they seemed skeptical.

2. Absolutely zero explanation was given. What are those drops they put in my eyes? I have no idea. Why did I have to chill out in the waiting room for 15 minutes afterwards? I have no idea. What was up with the ‘look towards your left shoulder/right knee/ceiling’ directions? No idea. I guess I’m fine? OPTOMETRY IS A MYSTERY.

3. When I was told, ‘it will wear off in a couple hours,’ that was a LIE. My appointment was at 10:00 in the morning. By 4:00 in the afternoon, my eyes were still very visibly dilated (and not matching amounts, either, which looked super weird). Between the headache and the light sensitivity, it basically shot the whole day.

I thought I was pretty clear about my reluctance to have this done, but the optometrist seemed confused by it. Afterwards, I was told, “See, it wasn’t so bad!” Um, yeah, it kinda was, actually. I wasn’t putting it off because I thought it would cause excruciating pain; I was putting it off because it meant someone acting on my body in a way that took it out of my control and out of its normal ability to do its own thing.

Anyway, I spent most of the time thinking about how appalled Dr. McCoy would be over our current standard of eye care. Bring on our Star Trek future!

Mirrored from The Marci Rating System.