It is very scary when you realize there is something wrong with your vision. The first thing you think is, I'm probably going to go blind and then you calm down and rationally deduce that there is no way you are going to go blind but you should probably go have your eyeballs checked out immediately. So I went over to the NYU health services building (my favorite place!) and went to Optometry where I was redirected to Urgent Care. So apparently it is a semi serious issue I began to think.
At Urgent Care I was seen by a befuddled Japanese doctor who strangely enough kept bowing to me. At first I thought he was joking but then the bowing seemed to increase and so did his serious expression as he re-directed me to the emergency room of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmirary.
So at 6:30 on Friday night I find myself in the waiting room of the ER at the Infirmirary listening to Bing Crosby croon "It's the most wonderful time of the year" on what seemed to be an infinite loop. Then finally after 2 hours, I get called in by the lone doctor who has 5 other angry people with eye problems to see after me. She pulls me into a darkened room and straps a clockwork orange like contraption to my face and drips 4 drops of diallating fluid into my right and left eye. She then replaces me in the waiting room and tells me that for the next 25 minutes my vision is going to get a bit "quonky." I remember back to when I was 4 years old and had the same drops put into my eyes when I first got glasses. I remember how I screamed in terror while a nurse clutched my hand and told me to pretend I was "Luke Skywalker" Fuck you nurse. Luke Skywalker wouldn't need glasses, he would have Jedi vision, there is no way Luke Skywalker would've let the nurse put those drops in his eyes. (Or at least that was my reasoning as a 4 year old)
Now 20 minutes into the procedure I my vision has become blurred. I can't see anything within a foot of me and all the christmas lights hanging from wreaths around the waiting room appear as giant fuzzy blur caterpillars. The ceiling of the room is a giant white grid of lights and this for some reason comforts me whenever I look up at it. I feel warmth eminating from the ceiling and want to touch--gabe I'm ready for you now.
So I march back into the room and after more clockwork orange like contraptions I am diagnosed with "Posterior Vitreous Detachment" a detachment of a jelly like substance from my retina. Apparently as long as my vision doesn't get dramatically worse over the next three weeks I wont go blind in my right eye! So I left the New York City Eye and ear infirmirary feeling happy that I wasn't going blind and also feeling completely "quonky" on a friday night. 2 for 1 I highly recommend a visit.
