Doctor, my eyes ...

I realize that was a wee bit terse last night; that was pretty much all I could do.

The story is that the Rhyming Family went to the optometrist yesterday, armed with the appropriate vision-benefit forms, specially issued by the teachers' union benefit office.

The last time I had new glasses was four years ago, and since those were knocked onto the floor in a toddler-influenced incident in May, the left lens has a deep scratch in the middle of it, such that when I wear them there is a blurry patch in the middle of my vision on that side. I have been joking that it's like practicing for glaucoma. Ha. Ha. I've taken to using my old glasses instead--the prescription didn't change last time--but four years ago they were beat up enough that I wanted to replace them, so you can imagine how they're doing now. I'm constantly cleaning them only to find it makes little difference. It was time.

For her part, A. needed new glasses because Z. pulled off the earpiece of hers a few months back, and the paper-clip thing only lasts but so long. Plus her prescription sunglasses were destroyed in the accident. Airbag, you know.

A. went first while Z. and I took a little trip next door to Wawa for a whole wheat hoagie, but by the time we got back it was already my turn, so I assigned Z. to consult with A. on frames.

Somehow, it seemed like my exam was taking longer than A.'s. There was a lot of shining lights into my pupils. There was a lot of optometric tools coming up closer to the surface of my eye than was comfortable. Finally he wrote the words "Krukenberg's spindle" on the back of an ophthalmologist's card and told me about the pigment on my cornea, the different sizes of my optic nerves, the possibility of glaucoma.

Then I went out into the frame-choosing part of the office. A. was still choosing frames. I ate my hoagie and I urged A. to take frames just a little more hip than her old ones. I put the things back that Z. took off the shelf. I chose a pair of frames that I had urged A. to reject, in easily the most distracted frame-choosing move of my glasses-wearing life.

I came home, hit google, and fell apart. And Z. chose yesterday to have her first attack of the "why's:" "Why is mama crying?" "Why is she scared?" "Why is there something wrong with her eyes?" She kept climbing into my lap and I couldn't tolerate her there.

What is apparently happening to me is that the pigment is coming off of my irises and floating around the inside of my eyes. In my right eye, which is my worse eye, some of it is collecting at the bottom of my iris. I can see this in the mirror; the only reason I never saw it before is that I didn't know to look. Creepy as all of that sounds, it is apparently not a problem. The problem is that the pigment can block drainage channels in the eye so that pressure increases. And then you can wind up with glaucoma. It is genetic and permanent and degenerative, but it can be managed. So this doesn't mean I'm going to go blind. Most likely. But I don't know how far it's progressed, either. It's been a long time since I saw an optometrist I trusted. At any rate, I called for an appointment with the ophthalmologist this morning; because I'm a new patient they couldn't see me for two weeks, so now I have two weeks to cycle through deliberately forgetting/brooding/obsessive internet searches.

We went directly from breakdown to an outdoor concert with a college friend who's visiting town with her husband and ten-month-old (a different college friend from last week--I do seem to be having a summer full of college friends, which has been lovely). It's the kind of relationship where we keep each other in the loop on marriage invitations and birth announcements, but not the kind of relationship where I could blurt all of this out when I hadn't seen her in two years. Instead, I think I was completely and thoroughly distracted.

Not least by the simple act of seeing. The concert was at the Morris Arboretum, a lush and gorgeous place. My eyesight corrects to better than 20/20--I've always regarded it as a gift and a tool, something I could rely on. I barely took in the concert--it couldn't touch Pink Martini, that's for sure. Instead, I looked out at the crisp, distant leaves on the trees at the far side of the park, and up at the oceans of the moon as it rose, and checked to see if there were any patches I was missing. Not so far. Not so far.

* * * * *

This morning:

Z. clambers into our bed and over Mommy.

Z.: Is it wake-up time?

S.: Hi boo, you are my favorite, favorite boo.

Z.: And you are my mama! And you love me even when you're crying.

S.: That's right.

Z.: And you don't have anything in your eye anymore.

S.: Oh, sweetie.

Z.: And you're not sad.