My very dear, very southern friend who lives in my neighborhood had cataract surgery this week.  I went with her for this and for her first cataract surgery.  The first surgery was three weeks ago and went off without a hitch.  The second one…done this week…didn’t go so well.  She inflamed her eye somehow and had to have three injections, yup shots right in the old eyeball, on both Thursday and Friday.  She had to go in to see her doctor on Saturday, and Sunday as well.  Her vision, needless to say, hasn’t been too great.  Neither has her mood.  Now I think she’s a riot, even when she’s in full on bitch mode, but occasionally she pisses other people off. 

She had to go  to a physician who specializes in diseases of the retina.  He didn’t have the greatest sense of humor.  My friend was a nervous wreck, after they told her she needed shots in her eye, and I really think she could have used a valium…but she was using humor to try and defuse the situation.   So here’s the situation: 1) terrified old broad with an eye that looks like blood could begin to drip from it at any minute 2) uptight doctor with God complex answering her questions in short, clipped, monotone one syllable answers 3) me trying not to laugh at the situation unfolding before me.  Here’s how it went down:

My friend calls me to tell me what is going on with her eye and she asks if I would please meet her at the doctor’s office.  I get there…now the last time I saw her was about 2 hours post surgery and she was doing fine…she has one eye that is very hemorrhagic and swollen but is talking like there is no tomorrow.  She has cornered the doctor who did her cataract surgery and is telling her about all the plastic surgery she is going to have once she gets over this.  Right now I would have to agree that she needs some work done.  She kind of looks like a late sixties female pirate who had a late night and bad rum.  I look at her and say “Arrrrrrrrrrrgh!!”  Everyone looks shocked, but her.  She laughs, of course.  Her doctor immediately tells me what is going on with her eye…like I can stop a lawsuit…and tells me what they are doing to correct the problem.  The reason we are all waiting right now is because she is allergic to penicillin and they are waiting for a different antibiotic to shoot in her eye.  Cool!  I ask if I can watch, they say yes.  Yea! 

We finally (after about 2 hours) go in to the treatment room.  They put her back in the chair and begin to prep her eye.  Every time he gets near her eye with anything she becomes convinced that it is the needle and she begins trying to butt walk out of the chair.  She has a white knuckled death grip on the arm rests and  is constantly saying over and over “I know you aren’t telling me the truth…you don’t want me to know you are coming at me with that needle.”  I tell her if she’ll shut up and be still maybe they can find a sticker for her.  She tells me what I can do with that sticker.  Finally she asked her surgeon to tell her a story.  Wait, first she asked the retina doctor if he was a touchy-feely kind of doctor.  I don’t know, I didn’t think he was cute, but she was blind in one eye and not seeing well out of the other.  Anyway, he said no.  She said “damn, just my luck.”  Then she asked her surgeon to tell her a story to take her mind off what was going on.  Her ophthalmologist told a story about a dentist who used to feel up his female patient’s breasts when he was cleaning their teeth because he was checking for swollen lymp nodes.  Well, this story was hysterical because apparently none of these women had a clue that you don’t actually have lymph nodes in your boobs and even if you did your dentist wouldn’t need to check them.  Retina doc never takes his eyes off of what he is doing.

Well, she began to relax.  The white knuckles disappeared and the feet which had been firmly planted on the footrest looked a little more relaxed.  I was silly enough to think she was going to make it through this with only moderate misbehavior.  Then he gave her those shots.  Holy Cow!  She said things that would make a sailor blush!  She cursed the man and his offspring.  She questioned the validity of his parent’s marriage at the time of his birth.  She compared him to some distinctly distasteful parts of the anatomy.  She was like one of those bulls that runs through the streets of Spain.  She was just looking for someone to get even with, and when it was over…when it was finally over, she sat up wiped her eyes and said “well that wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected it to be.”  I remember thinking “what would have happened if it had been bad?”  The retina doc, who had never shown any emotion at all throughout this whole tirade hands her the plastic top off the hypodermic needle and asks her if she knows what it is.  She bites and he says “it’s a midget condom.  You thought I wasn’t listening didn’t you.”  And then he left the room.  Then the next day came and her eye was worse and she had to go through those shots again.  I found out how bad it could be.  Little old women who are almost seventy can curse creatively if you shove needles in their eyes.  Just trust me on that.  You really don’t want to find out for yourself.

She was doing better when I took her in today.  She hasn’t seen the retina doctor since Friday.  He said he was leaving town.  I don’t blame him.  I considered it myself.  She likes just the regular old ophthalmologist she has been seeing.  He thinks she has celiac disease and so does she, so she thinks he’s a genius.  Plus, her eye is a lot better so this dude hasn’t had to stick anything in them besides drops.  That will go along way towards helping how you feel about a feller.  I just hope she’s got something wrong with her.  For two reasons really…she’s really funny at a doctor’s office, and I could use the material so I have things to write about.