July 29, 2004

• Adverse Reaction

  I went to my eye doctor today for my regular retinal exam. While he was going through the preliminaries, I mentioned that I had a pimple on the inside of my left upper eyelid. It wasn't really bothering me, but it had been there for a couple of months and it didn't seem as if it would disappear by itself. He confirmed that it would probably remain unless treated surgically and asked if I wanted to have it removed. I consented.

  There was no preliminary sterilization. He took a sterile needle and poked it into the cyst. Then, with a series of cotton swabs, he squeezed out the gummy white material from inside the cyst. That's when I did the worst possible thing I could do.

  I started laughing.

  This brought the operation to a halt. I had to explain that, surrounded by technology as we were, the treatment still came down to poking the offending growth with a needle and squeezing. He shared my amusement at the situation, informing me that he could have gotten out his laser and zapped the growth to ash, which he would have scraped away, for just about $6,000 -- assuming I had wanted to use high technology on the problem.

  No, I told him, I was satisfied that I was receiving the treatment appropriate to the problem. I just have a sick sense of humor that sometimes erupts at the wrong time.

  I've been bathing my eyelids with warm water once daily, on his previous recommendation. He said I should increase that to twice or thrice daily for a week, until the cyst has completely drained and scarred over.

  Having treated my cyst, he went on to examine my retinas. As soon as he shined that bright light into my eyes, my nose started to run, causing me to call another halt to the procedings to clear the new problem.

  The verdict from today's exam is that my retinas are slightly improved from the last visit. I'm scheduled to return in December.

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