#115 In which our hero has problems from head to toe.

My optometrist doesn't take credit cards. I am completely incredulous about this... I mean, I can buy my morning coffee (cost, $1.60) with my credit card, but I can't pay for services rendered by a licensed eyeball doctor? How does that even make sense?

So, yeah, went to the eye doctor yesterday. I have to go every four months or I'll go blind. Well, not really, but she has managed to put the fear of God into me about my sight, so I go. I don't remember if I've written about it before, but I suffer from ocular hypertension. "Suffer" is a misnomer, though, since the condition doesn't cause me any discomfort whatsoever, and it was discovered by accident during a routine check up.

Ocular hypertension is when that the pressure inside your eye is too high. This means that the fluid in my eye is forced out of the only opening, which is in the back where the optic nerve snakes out of my eyeball and up into my brain. The problem is, the overly-pressurized fluid pushes on the nerve and, over time, can damage it. This is what causes glaucoma. And glaucoma makes you gradually go blind, diminishing your peripheral vision until it seems like you're looking down a dark tunnel (or so I'm told).

But I'm far from blind. Matter of fact, my eye doctor stressed yesterday if anyone asks, I should say that I do not have glaucoma. She made it sound as if kids might tease me on the playground for being different, perhaps chanting,

Excess pressure in the eye
Causes your optic nerve to die!
Blindness! Blindness!
Glaucoma now!

Anyway, the condition is easily treated (at least, in my case) with medicated eye drops I put in my eyes every night.

But, I still have to go every four months and do the terrible puff of air in the eye test, which I hate. They also put in these burning eye drops which numbs the surface of my eye so they can poke at it awhile more. But, my pressure has been really good since I started taking these drops, so all is well.

Speaking of medical issues, I'm currently gimping around like a wounded animal. I don't remember if I've written about this either, but I suffer from gout as well. And when I say suffer, I mean fucking suffer because when I have a gout flare-up it's just about the worst thing in the world.

I managed to bend the nail of my big toe last weekend, and apparently this pain caused a gout attack, which is a new one for me. And now, the big black toe nail doesn't really hurt me at all, but the gout damn near makes me cry when I put on a shoe.

I've been to several podiatrists in the past, and the general consensus is that I've got the big toe of a 60-year-old man.

So I hobble around and wait for the drugs to take affect. I'm lucky in that I have a flare up maybe once or twice a year, and the drugs I've been prescribed fix the problem in a couple of days. But until then, it's a careful dance around toys on the floor and active children... once of which really likes to kiss my toe and make it "all better." I really appreciate the offer, honey, but when you bend the joint back and press your lips against it?

That does NOT make it all better, and there's words that daddy doesn't think you should learn just yet.