So, this no-longer doing daylight savings time nearly messed us up again.
While my younger daughter and I were out, the eye clinic called to conform today’s appointment. I asked my husband to verify the times, as it was a joint appointment with my older daughter and I. It had been rescheduled twice, but I never updated the note stating my daughter’s time, which was now about 5 hours later, instead of half and hour later. I also asked him to confirm the cost of my daughter’s appointment, since she does not have any insurance to cover it.
My calendar said the appointment was at 11, so my daughter’s should have been 11:30.
After we got home, my daughter asked me to cancel her appointment, because of the cost. She wanted to save the funds for something else. My husband and I intended to cover it for her, so she could pay us back later, but she refused.
So I called the clinic (because she was making supper) to cancel, starting off by saying that we had a double appointment at 11am. At the end of the call, I confirmed it was 11am.
Then the messages my husband sent through Discord came in.
The appointments were for 10 and 10:30am, and the cost for my daughter’s was $125.
So I now had two different times, with both from the clinic. I made this appointment months ago, though it was rescheduled, so the time should not have changed, like it had when I tried to make more recent appointment in my phone’s calendar.
This was all figured out too late in the day to call back, so my younger daughter and I headed out before 9am, to get there early for 10am. If it turned out to be at 11am, we could just go somewhere nearby – or wait in their waiting room. This clinic is very good about taking people in early.
We left early enough to get there shortly before 9:30, and sure enough, the appointment was at 10. The receptionist told me that a lot of people have been having the same problem.
I didn’t have long to wait before someone came in for my field of vision test. Which no longer involved a dark room and my head in a dome. It now has this spiffy new gadget.
Virtual reality goggles, with remote control clickers. Two of them available for right or left handed people. I did left handed, though I could have used either.
That was so weird.
The first weirdness was the view when it was first put on. Huge windows with a nature vista beyond a room with a glass coffee table in front of me, and my name and other information floating in the middle. When looking down to the remote clicker in my hand, it glowed a blinding white – but just the remote, not my hand holding it, hovering in space.
Then a cheery, annoying female voice gave instructions and I just about jumped out of my skin.
Then the test started, with a status bar around the green dot I was to focus on, letting me now how far along the test was – right eye first. Half way through, the cheery voice announced that I was half way there and doing great!!!
Yeah, I almost jumped out of my skin again.
The voice came back 3/4s of the way, telling me I was almost done, and doing really great!
This time, at least, I didn’t startle quite as much.
I can’t remember which time it happened, but I remember saying “that voice has got to go!!” 😂
Then there was another little information intermission and the left eye was done.
One of the issues I discovered was that, around the green dot, it wasn’t fully dark. More of a mottled dark grey. Which meant it was very hard to tell if the dimmer lights I was supposed to be hitting the trigger for every time I saw one was actually a light, or just part of the background. I’m sure I missed a lot of those little lights.
After that, I was back in the waiting room for a bit before being called back for the puff test. That one is always “fun”. Once it was done, I got the dilation drops, then back in the waiting room with my daughter for the 10 minutes or so the drops needed to do their thing. Once there was enough time for the dilation, it was back to another machine to take images of my eyes, then once again to the waiting room until the doctor came for me.
Most of this part of the appointment was going over what she saw in the images. I have been coming back every 6 months to monitor some tiny hemorrhages in my eyes. There was one spot in my right eye were fluid was visible between layers.
That pocket of fluid was noticeably bigger.
Not a concern yet, but something to monitor. If the fluid broke through the tissue, treatment would be needed, with involved an eye injection. That gave me the total heebeejeebies. I told her I knew of the treatment, as my mother had gotten it. She was an absolute trooper about it, too.
I am not as brave as my mother when it comes to stuff like this.
As we talked, I mentioned to her a couple of things. A couple of nights ago – my first night sleeping on my own bed instead of on the couch, away from the cats, my eyes had started to hurt. Like a headache, except in my eyeballs. That went away, however for the past while, I’ve had issues with irritation in my right eye. It felt like I was developing a sty, but I could see nothing.
I also gave her a short version of what’s happened over the past year, and of my surgery just a few weeks ago.
She immediately recognized that all of this is the most likely cause of what she was seeing in those images. Now that the surgery is done, things should settle down, but she wanted me back again earlier than 6 months, to monitor. We settled on my coming back in April. I chose April because the weather and road conditions should be past the worst of winter by then. It also puts us back on track, after my appointments being rescheduled several times. She made sure to let me know that, if I had any issues, to come back earlier.
Then she did a direct eye exam, with the bright lights.
Interestingly, that didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as it usually does.
She went through both eyes as usual, started to back off and switch gears, then went back to look at both eyes again.
She found why my right eye was bothering me.
Turns out, I’d burst a blood vessel. Nothing major, and the blood was being re-absorbed as expected. However, she felt that the physical stress of the past while easily explained why this would have happened. I got instructions on what to do – and not do – for the next while as it heals.
Oh, and that field of vision test? Where I know I missed a lot of those little lights?
It seems they take that into account by simply doing more of them all over the grid. My field of vision test came back just fine.
So with that done, I booked another appointment in April – and my calendar didn’t even try to change the time! I’d mentioned it to the doctor and she has an Android phone too, and she showed me something in the calendar that’s there when a new appointment is being made, where I could change things. I ended up not having to do it.
What I had done today was completely covered by our province’s system, but my appointment in April is going to cost me $60, as this one is going to include an actual eye test for my prescription – something that wasn’t going to be done while my eyes were dilated.
After we were done, my daughter and I made a quick stop at a small grocery store on the way out. This store tends to be a lot more expensive for most things, but there are a few things that are worth getting. I ended up picking up a rib roast that was on sale, plus also had a price reduction tag on it, so it was something that needed to be cooked right away.
It’s in the oven right now, and the house smells heavenly.
I ended up getting my daughter to pick something for her and her sister, but they were out of what she normally would have picked. She ended up choosing some fresh made submarine sandwiches and, when I saw them, asked her to pick another for my husband. We also ended up getting a couple of bags of a dozen fresh baked cookies each, to split between the four of us.
Meanwhile, doing through their British Imports section – a favourite section of mine – I decided to try a new tea.
I had to laugh when I saw the name.
We get Tei Fu lotion, regularly. It is exceptionally good for sore muscles and joints, and to combat Charlie Horses. Finding a tea of the same name, spelled differently, was just funny to me.
It doesn’t take much to amuse me.
I’ve since had a cup, to go with a couple of cookies, and I quite like it!
From there, we did make one more stop on the way home, this time at the feed store in the town we drive through along the way. I picked up a 40 pound bag of kibble in a different brand, so the cats have some variety, that my daughter carried to the truck for me. The woman who came out to process the sale was the same women that was trying to arrange chicks for us in the spring, splitting an order between us and others. We never did get a call about it, so that didn’t pan out. I told her, it ended up turning out for the best, because so many things happened. She totally got that!
From there, we finally headed home.
I say “finally” but, in the end, because they took me in so quickly at the eye clinic, it was just barely noon by the time we drove up our own driveway.
Once we were home and everything was put way, I started on that rib roast. For the meat, I rubbed it with olive oil, then cut slits and pushed in whole garlic cloves. The meat was surrounded by whole, peeled potatoes and quartered onions. Then the meat was seasons with a steak spice mix my SIL gave us, while the potatoes and onions were seasoned with a lemon dill seasoning mix, also given to us by my SIL. It’s almost done, and I am quite looking forward to seeing how it turned out!
Oh, the house smells so good right now!
Meanwhile, I think I’ll be making myself some more of that tea.
The Re-Farmer
