I spuddle.

As you’ve probably guessed from the clever title of this post, I went to the eye doctor on Monday. That’s not really newsworthy, except it is in my world, where remembering to go to the eye doctor is a semi-big deal because it indicates that maybe my memory is starting to return. I’m supposed to go every two years or else risk permanent blindness in the form of glaucoma. This is because of the farm animal relay race I ran in a Grade 12 drama class. (No, I don’t know why either.) You were supposed to pick a farm animal and then embodying the farm animal, run from one end of the classroom to another. I can’t remember what animal I was, probably a somewhat less-than-enthusiastic one that didn’t make too many ridiculous sounds, such as a mute goat or a mute cow or a mute horse. I do remember that Bruce Martell was a duck. I remember this because he was flapping. And he flapped his hand into my right eye.

At the moment his hand made contact with my eye, I felt a pop. This pop was very distinct. It wasn’t like, “Gosh, was that a pop?” It was more like, “Holy FUCK, you POPPED MY EYE, you ASSHOLE.” At which point I got sent out of the drama annex to go to the washroom to “check my contact lens”. FYI, Mrs. Drama Teacher, contact lenses don’t POP. Instead, I sauntered out of the classroom and directly to the conveniently located bus stop and got on the next bus home. By the time I got home (sorry, this is super gross, but I’ve started sharing and now I’m going to overshare) (look away if you must), the coloured part of my eye (which surely has a proper name, but if it does, I’ve forgotten what it is) (iris! that’s it!) (see, my memory IS improving!) had completely filled with blood, so that it was, you know, RED instead of the usual murky brownish-green that is flatteringly referred to as “hazel”. Luckily, my parents are medical people. I mean, seriously, LUCKILY. Because if they weren’t, what the hell would they have done with me? I am a series of medical maladies interspersed with a few other minor plot points.

My point is that I was taken straight to hospital where I lay for a week with my eyes bound and covered so they couldn’t move in an effort to save my POPPED EYE. (Medical term: hyphema). (If you google it, you’ll get some super gruesome pictures.)

All this really means is that I’m in a very high risk group for glaucoma, which is something I don’t want. I don’t really want anything bad, actually, but once it’s been articulated, I specifically don’t want it. (I have also previously had melanoma, so don’t want that, and am at increased risk of all kinds of hideous future cancers as a result, all of which I don’t want.) (I also don’t want disc problems in my back, but it may be too late for that.) (Actually, in addition, I also don’t want anything that has an abbreviation that ends with S, such as MS or ALS or any of the other S things that there are walks and telethons to raise money for. But I digress.) So for the last twenty years, I went to the eye doctor religiously at the two-year interval and then something happened and I forgot to go for six years.

Six years. Anything could have happened, people. ANYTHING.

Fast forward to Monday, when I drag myself to the eye doctor, knowing — knowing — that he’s going to tell me I have glaucoma, or perhaps something worse, like eye cancer. Those were the two things I was focussed on, only the Big G or the Big C. Nothing else. For some reason, when I’m facing bad news, I become ridiculously upbeat in the hopes that if the doctor finds me amusing, he’ll downgrade the diagnosis or simply cure it with his good spirits. So I chattered away like a manic monkey while he dripped various different Painful Eye Drops into my eyes and shone dazzling lights into them.

By the end of the appointment, I was nearly blind, practicing for the future glaucoma he was almost certainly about to tell me that I had. That sucked, but I found I could still update my Twitter status if I took my glasses off. That’s just an FYI in case you are ever having glaucoma testing and panic because you can’t see your lifeline iPhone.

“Well,” he said. “You don’t have glaucoma. Your eyes are 20-20 with your glasses on. You probably need bifocals but it’s too soon, the prescription would be too mild to bother with.” Pause. He didn’t pause, but I am pausing to tell you that my brain did the equivalent of slamming on the brakes.

Bifocals?

Uh, aren’t those for old people?

Am I… old?

Then it got worse. And by worse, I mean shockingly worse.

“And,” he went on. “You have a cataract in your injured eye.”

A CATARACT?

I think my entire face rearranged itself to form a giant question mark that may have reached out and slapped him in the face like some kind of giant, dead fish being wielded by a madman. A cataract? For one thing, I was not braced for news regarding a cataract. For another thing, I’ve only ever heard of cataracts in the context of people-old-enough-to-have-grandchildren and elderly dogs.

“A cataract?” I whispered meekly. “What does that mean?”

“Oh,” he said. “You’ll have to have it fixed surgically eventually, but for now it’s not a problem.”

It’s NOT?

I was immediately taken back down Sweet Memory Lane to a different doctor’s appointment I had about a thousand years ago when I was having surgery on my ankle, which I wrecked by running into a hole in the Napa Valley about fifteen years ago. (Maybe I’ll tell that story one day, but probably not, because it’s sort of embarrassing.) I mentioned to the doctor at that time that my hips often bugged me when I ran, and was that to do with the old ankle injury that fused my ankle. So he did a hip X-ray and found that I had…

Wait for it…

HIP DYSPLASIA.

I had NO idea up until that point that humans could get hip dysplasia. I thought that was reserved for purebred German Shepherd dogs. Seriously. So put this together, people. I have a CATARACT and HIP DYSPLASIA. And I’m certainly old. For a dog.

Conclusion: I am a German Shepherd dog.

I mean, it’s obvious. Isn’t it?

But wait, I have further proof.

You see, I came home from my eye doctor, pretty much reeling from the shock of this cataract news. I went directly outside into the sunshine, where I was immediately blinded by the sun on my dilated pupils. After I finished crying about the cataract painful bright light (I swear, the light was just making my eyes water, it wasn’t real tears or anything), The Bun forced me to erect his tent, which I’d promised to do. Erecting a tent while blind is hard, FYI. This post is full of FYIs. I should submit it to Wikipedia.

I managed to get the tent up and went into the basement to get the requisite blankets and pillows and toys where I was immediately hit with the stench of natural gas. Leaking natural gas. Believe me, I know the smell of natural gas. By the way, did you know that they scent natural gas with the smell of decaying corpse? Apparently, it’s the one scent in the world to which all humans react negatively. It’s true, I didn’t make that up, or if I did, I now believe it to be true, which is the same thing as a fact. This post is a veritable cornucopia of facts. I’m just here to serve.

I went ahead and called the gas company and evacuated the house, which wasn’t hard because the kids were busy fighting in the tent outside and very occupied. i.e The Bun was physically hurling The Birdy out of the tent while shouting, “THIS IS MY TENT, GET OUT YOU… YOU… YOU BROCCOLI HEAD! YOU PANTS! YOU COFFEE CAT!” (”Coffee cat” is his worst insult, and my favourite. Awesome. It has a kind of cool jazz flavour and also makes me think of chocolate bars.) We waited for the emergency gas man to appear, which he did very very quickly. They don’t horse around with gas leaks, my friends. I was warned not to light a match or even to ANSWER THE PHONE because the surge of power from the ringing phone can cause explosions. (I sort of did wonder, yes, if being in the backyard was such a hot idea if the house was pending explosion, but I had to be there to let the gas guy in.)

Of course, this gas guy knew the guy who used to own our house because the guy who used to own our house was a GAS GUY. Which is hilarious when you remember (as I’m sure you do) that when we bought it we had to have all the gas refitted because it was all leaking. All of it. Leaking. Nice work, GAS GUY. The new gas guy wanted to chat about the old gas guy who lived here for a while because one thing we’ve learned about our gas leaky house is that everyone likes to chat about how the old gas guy enjoyed saving money by doing things himself. Really? You don’t say.

This new gas guy went in and announced he couldn’t smell anything, but he’d check it out with his fancy gas-sniffer. I could tell he thought I was crazy (he was using that extra calm, hushed voice that people use around crazy folk). But that’s OK, I’m used to it.

And wouldn’t you know it? About half an hour later, he emerged and said, “You’re right! There’s a leak! It’s so small though, you can’t possibly have smelt it. Unless you’re like some kind of GAS-SNIFFING DOG or something.”

!

What did I tell you?

I think you know what I’m saying. Enjoy this recent shot of me*! Maybe I should use it for my next book jacket.

*Uh, I’m totally kidding. That’s just a random German Shepherd dog with cataracts that I found on Google by searching “German Shepherd dog cataracts”. No doubt he/she also suffers hip dypslasia. So I can understand why you fell for it. But seriously, that’s a DOG.

Filed under: Me, Myself and I