It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life."
Thank you Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community
of teacher-writers!
My eyes were irritated, and more so in my left one. I hoped it was a simple infection, another byproduct of time with grandchildren, but a glance in the mirror confirmed my fears: there was no redness and no visual difference between the two eyes.
This means it must be the mole.
Somehow, I missed all the marks of my anxiety’s favorite game – feeling unusual symptoms just before my annual eye doctor appointment.
Thirty years ago, my eye doctor discovered a mole behind my left eye, an internal mole, something that can’t be seen without a special camera. He assured me that it is probably nothing, yet he has to take a picture of it every year and compare its size and shape to that of the year before. It has not changed one iota in thirty years, except perhaps in its ability to make me fret. Aging is weird like that. My father had all sorts of problems with one eye and was basically blind in it by the end of his life, and this invisible-to-me mole feels like some parallel to his health issues. Regardless of the doctor’s reassurances.
At the eye doctor’s, I had my usual thorough exam. I read the vision chart. The doctor dilated my eyes and I waited alone in the dark with my active imagination. He returned and we sat knee to knee with my chin in the stirrup of the eye machine while he issued commands about staring straight, looking this way, no blinking. I moved to the second room and sat perfectly still at the eye camera and stared into a bright green star without blinking, over and over again, each eye.
Everything. Was. Absolutely. Normal.
No change in the size of the mole, no changes in my eyeglass prescription, even. All is fine. What a waste of time worry is! Though it did leave me with a poem:
my eye feels dusty filmy off there’s something pestering in the most benign way as if somehow a spot of honey slipped onto an eyelash or two and each blink kisses other eyelashes which struggle to separate from the sticky caress double vision? no spots? no blindness? not yet I just feel odd
Thank you for visiting my blog. Clicking the title of any post will open a comment box at the bottom of the page. I love hearing from you.
Maureen,
I totally understand your anxiety about that eye mole and am so glad it’s nothing. I never escape from the eye exam w/out a change in prescription. Not one time in my life. I have the weirdest experience every time Ivsit for a refraction. The chart sometimes bounces, sometimes moves around. I always feel S though I’m trying to pass some impossible to pass standardized test. I can’t imAgine having to worry about a mole, and given your father’s history, your worry makes complete sense to me.
The doctor has assured me that I don’t need to worry about the mole, that my body has tons of normal moles (Irish gal!) and there’s no reason to have alarm about this one. However, being told to “not worry” simply sounds an alarm for me, lol. Much ado about nothing. Thanks, Glenda!
I love your writing style! Such a treat to read this. And I love the way you slip from prose to poetry. The eyelashes struggling to separate from the sticky caress…I had to say that out loud to fully appreciate the way you crafted it!
Thank you, Barbara. I enjoyed writing into my anxiety, trying to name what I was imagining.
Maureen, I don’t think there is much that compares to the worried concern of a medical issue and the wait time until it is confirmed and resolved. I’m so thankful that you got the peace of mind and a clean bill of eye health. Your poem brings the feeling precisely of the honey sticking on eyelashes – – that is truly a descriptor that helps understand the friction of the experience and the nagging constancy of struggling to see and get the clear picture. Celebrating better days ahead with you!
Your fears sound particularly alarming especially because it does sound like you could be having a detached retina. Well, I hope the doctor is correct. I know my husband feels very frustrated with his eyesight and he gets the same sort of response. Excellent job of sharing your personal eye situation in a poem. I can so relate to the end:) Hugs!
Maureen, what a great post. Your description of sitting knee to knee with your chin in the stirrup was so visual. As I’ve done that many times, I was right there with you. So glad to hear the news was good and your worries were for naught. (Which is so often the case, isn’t it?) That honey on your eye is such a great metaphor for what you were feeling. You described that kiss…sticky caress…with such precision and skill.
“It has not changed one iota in thirty years, except perhaps in its ability to make me fret. Aging is weird like that. ”
“It has not changed one iota in thirty years, except perhaps in its ability to make me fret.”
“somehow
a spot of honey
slipped onto
an eyelash”
It’s writing like this that keeps me returning, Maureen. I am so glad your eye “Was. Absolutely. Normal.”