So, after hearing last week that three people I know had caught all Covid, I decided the Flu and Cold and Covid season was beginning and I’d better get my health maintenance taken care of. I made an eye appointment and an MRI appointment as soon as possible.
The eye appointment was unremarkable. My suspicions proved true: my vision is worse than ever. Except, the peripheral vision? Better than ever.
Well, there were two semi-remarkable things that happened.
Thing One
I was looking at frames and a lovely young lady was helping me. She looked goodnatured, with a jolly, open face, which I didn’t expect from someone with a half-shaved head and one of those horseshoe nose piercings.
She promised to tell me if I looked absurd, and let me look at the pair I had planned to buy, and while she deemed them acceptable, she said, “Look at these.”
I had just said I don’t look good in dark frames, but it must be I don’t look good in thick dark frames, because these were perfect. So that was remarkable: I only tried on two pair before I found something I liked. And the young lady with the semi buzz cut said, “I have those at home.” So I share a fashion sense with someone with a horseshoe-nose-thingee, which I did not expect.
Thing Two
I was discussing the images of my optic nerve with the eye doctor.
She peered at the images on her screen and asked, “Hm. When is your next MRI?”
“Day after tomorrow.” I said.
She paused, and then just made a note on the screen. YES. A catastrophic note on the screen the screen that probably said something like, “Visible lesions engulfing the optic nerve, brain detritus clearly visible.”
I have had enough MRIs to realize I catastrophize before every one. The neurologist orders a spine MRI I wasn’t expecting; it’s going to be bad breaking news on the MS-MRI channel. This just added an extra dollop of imagined catastrophe. A dollop on top of the buzzing leg I’ve had this last month. Luckily the MRI was just two days away.