My eyes aren't so bad

Today I had my first eye exam in 20 years, thus marking off No. 41 from my list.

This experience was markedly improved from my last one. That time, they didn't tell me (or I wasn't listening when they told me) what to expect when my eyes were dilated: namely, blurred vision. So as I sat waiting for the doctor to return to the exam room, flipping through a magazine and unable to make out a word, I started crying (exacerbating the blurriness), sure something was terribly wrong and I was going blind. I was an anxious child.

Today, I paged Melissa, who works there, as soon as I arrived and she hustled me into an exam room to do her thing. She was fantastic and it seriously paid off for me to be well-connected there. The "new patient" letter I received before my appointment encouraged me to bring food and drink, a sweater and a book, because the typical wait time was three hours.

Three hours! What good is an appointment? I am not kidding when I say people were sleeping in the waiting room. Thanks to Melissa, I was in and out in an hour. Strangely, I was able to drive back to work and finish out the day despite the dilation. Things were a little blurry for a couple of hours but now they're all cleared up.

The verdict on my eyes was that I'm a little near-sighted and astigmatic (is that a word?), meaning, as I already knew, I am fine without glasses during the day but could use a boost when driving at night or in the rain or when trying to see things in the distance. If it's pretty cheap, I think I'll get the prescription filled just so I have the glasses when I need them.