part two......oh say can you see....

I freak out whenever doctors say anything

     I live in constant fear of illness.  You know the ones.  I always have a fear that I am going to be stricken.  The worst will happen lingers deep inside me.
     So when I was told I was going blind in my right eye, (yesterday's blog)  I was pretty down.  Hell, I admit it, I cried.  I could not imagine life as a partially blind person.
     Emily said to go to a specialist.  I stewed for three days before I called Hauser Ross in Sycamore and scheduled an appointment with a retinal specialist.  That had one opening the following day.
     Things did not start off well.  When I checked in, they were surprised to see me.  Evidently I called that morning and cancelled because I was sick, so my slot was given away.  I told them I felt great and never called.
     So they got me in to see the retina specialist, who only comes there once a week.
     First, they dilated my eyes.  Then they did a pressure test.  Then I saw the doctor. Then he said the words that always scare me.  "We want to do a test where we inject dye into your arm and take pictures of your eye.  The young nurse who looks about 12 will carefully fill your veins with a fluorescent color.  It will be fun."   Or something like that.
     I did mention I did not like needles.
     They sat me down in a chair and asked which arm.  I looked left.  I looked right.  I looked left.  I looked right.  Another young thing asked what was wrong.
     "I am just trying to figure out which way I should fall when I pass out after you stick a huge needle in my arm."  They laughed.  They seriously thought I was joking.
     So they strapped me into the chair....or maybe they told me to sit still....and shot my arm full of fluorescent yellow or something.  Then we all sat back.  Soon, the dye was working it's way through my body.
        I  asked how long it took to get from my arm to my eyes.  She said, about 12 seconds.  I knew that because the colors in the room changed.  The lights became a purple hue, their faces lime green, their white jackets a buttery color.
     "Whoa dudes,"  I said, "I haven't seen colors like this since the 60s!"
     They put a search light in my eyes and took pictures of my right eye.  Several pictures.  Then they stopped and said, "Reload!" and did the whole picture thing again.
     Realize my eyes were dilated.  I was seeing yellow.  And they were shining a Boeing 727 landing light in my eye and telling me "don't blink" and "sit still."  They had to take a lot of pictures.
     When I returned to the doctor, he mumbled, pointed, mumbled, pointed.  I checked my zipper, but that was not what he was mumbling about.
     Long story short:  I have a condition that is similar to macular degeneration, but not the same.  It mimics macular degeneration and can only be detected by doing the dye in the arm test and looking at the back of the eye.  It will result in a diminishing of distance vision, but I will not go blind.  It generally does not get worse and it is what it is.
     But he also wanted me back in four months to do a recheck.
     The nurse who injected the dye warned me that going pee would be an experience.  I should not be worried if my color was "off"
     Off would be a polite word.  I don't know exactly how to describe it, only that if I had been lined up at a trough at Wrigley and peeing that color, they would have thought I was a visitor from space.
     The other side effect was pine trees were purple.  Vivid purple.
     But I could see them, and at that point color did not matter.