Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

This is how bad my memory has been lately: I found the doctor of ophthalmology whom I'd seen this Spring (and whose name I couldn't find anywhere in my memory or paper records) by looking up the address of my dentist (whose office was down the hall in the same office building), and then googling for an eye doctor with the same address, which turned up P------ & D------- as a match. When I called their clinic, they said that Dr. D------- was out today, but that Dr. S----- could see me a.s.a.p., and so I drove across town to try to keep a 10:15 AM appointment with her.

I'm pretty sure I saw Dr. Michael P------- (the ophthalmologist in their offices) in the Spring, but since then the P----- & D------- partnership has become D------- & S------- (both of whom are just doctors of optometry, from what I can google) and moved to a different office building, though the new office still has the same clinic name and kept my patient records. I didn't know that there'd been any change until I got to their old office five minutes ahead of my appointment time, found it dark and locked up, and saw the sign on the door reminding people that they were moving on Aug. 1st to a new address a little ways north on that same major thoroughfare. Fortunately, I had my cell phone and still remembered the office phone number, so I was able to get directions after the second time I got lost trying to find their new address (you get to it through a parking garage BENEATH the Publix supermarket just south of a hospital). I got there late at 10:30, but they still took me almost right away.

Dr. S----- checked for pupil size (difference would suggest neurological damage) and a bunch of other stuff, then had them do another pressure test on my eyes, then dilated me and had the assistant put me through a 'field test' for each eye (5 minutes of looking straight ahead into a white box with one eye, and then 5 minutes with the other, and I push a button everytime I see a flash of light anywhere in my peripheral vision), followed by flash photos of the back or interior (I assume) of each eyeball (finished pictures just looked like big red, cloudy circles to me), and then took some good long looks at the backs of my eyeballs from every angle and direction to search for any sign of a detached retina.

Everything checked out normal (well, normal for me), with no signs of cataracts or detached retinas, or anything else. Only thing left would be to get an MRI to check for something funky going on neurologically that doesn't show up in the office tests.

She left it that she'd call me back next week to see how I'm doing, but I'm to call sooner if it gets noticeably worse, in which case she'll set me up with a neurologist for an MRI. If it's just a case of my brain allowing some of the color or brightness connections (my terms, not hers) to my right eye to fall dormant because I've been using my left eye most of the time lately, then maybe it'll get better if I make a conscious effort to use my right eye more.

At least, we've ruled out just about everything except a brain tumor, so far! That's comforting, . . . right?