Things I Learnt Today

Migrated from LiveJournal

1) If you're going for eye tests, don't assume three hours of free parking will be enough time before you can safely drive. Do assume you might need to ask a friend to be chauffeur.

2) If an assistant tells you that you might see the specialist herself next time you come, assume you will — and find out what it will cost.

3) If you don't have data activated on your phone, and your tablet doesn't connect directly to the net, don't go out without your portable modem. (In case you need to check your bank balance online — particularly if you use an environmentally sound and therefore rare bank which doesn't have branches everywhere.)

******

'It costs more today, because you saw the doctor,' said the receptionist as I was leaving. I managed not to faint on being told how much more. 

'The girls would have told you last time,' she added. I said I didn't recall being told, and wondered silently whether I should worry about Alzheimer's after all. But now I do remember the assistant I saw last time saying very tentatively, as an afterthought, that the specialist might want to check me too next time. No mention of dollars, I swear.  It's always been bulk billing here in the past, so I wasn't concerned.

Well, we sorted that one. Age Pensioner; nothing like that sum in bank until next week; so I signed a form to say I'll pay in seven days.

What I also didn't expect was that the specialist would put extra drops in my eyes right at the last minute before my long appointment ended. 

'How soon can I drive?' I asked. (Last time there had been no problem; I was given the drops early on.) 

'It varies,' said the receptionist. 'It can be two hours, or four, or twenty-four. Go and have a coffee or something while you wait.' 

I did that. Then I walked around for three more hours, waiting for my eyes to settle down — two hours over the free parking limit. I was given very strict instructions not to drive until I was sure my eyes were ready — and indeed I wouldn't want to, with the blurry vision I had for those hours.

Now what will happen? Will I have to present my little ticket and then money will be demanded? Will I be able to pay it by card? Will there be enough left in my bank after buying coffee and cake for lunch? If I can't pay, will they stop my car from leaving?

I guess I'll figure something out,

The eyes are nearly normal now.

Oh well, gird up the loins. Trivial adventure number one million and ninety-nine coming up. After I get through it, I'll no doubt feel pleased with myself for doing so. But meanwhile.... 

Later:
Whew! No cause to be proud of myself, but at least heaps of relief. It was easy. There was a handy little machine at the entrance to the car park, where I could insert ticket and credit card and pay the extra. Only $12. That much I had. (You can tell I'm not often in the Big Smoke. I expect most people know about these things.)

What else I learned today:

4) If you're going to be out of the house a longish time, do remember to take the water bottle you reminded yourself of the night before. Maybe stick a note on the fridge?

Things to be grateful for:

a) I hadn't had a lot of exercise lately, what with minor medical and surgical procedures. (Don't panic, all's well.) I didn't exactly power walk around Coolangatta but it was a very long stroll. 

b) If not the fierce heatwave of yesterday, it was still hot out — but I spent most of the day in air-conditioned shopping centre.

c) It's been years. The specialist didn't remember me well enough to ask about Andrew (who I'm sure she would have remembered; like many people, she adored him) so I didn't have to do the 'Oh, he died' thing. One can have too much of that.

d) I've been paying over-the-counter prices for the drops they were testing. Now I have prescriptions — much cheaper — for products which will work even better. And I don't need to take them nearly so often.

e) I am not required to go back. My GP can renew the scripts as needed.

f) There is nothing too serious wrong. It's just that, being a writer, and one who has embraced the digital age, I use my computer and tablet a lot. I even prefer ebooks to print ones for my leisure reading these days. So my eyes get dry, which messes up my vision — but not in a deep-seated, permanent way. It's easily fixed. The drops I have are referred to by the professionals as 'tear supplements'; isn't that cute?


Comments from LJ posting:

goldmourn

Posts written like this make things easier to read. I should use this format sometimes - if you see that I do, be sure to take some credit for it - I sometimes talk like this, numbering things in importance but then I forget where I was at and invalidate everything I was saying.

Surprise extra billing - not good! I don't like surprises, especially ones that cost me.

I just noticed you have a tag for sylvia plath in the sidebar - among all manner of interesting things! - and now I'm curious. oh - many interests or topics in common! makes me wish I'd been tagging my posts all along.

I hope today is going well for you.

Oh, and I should probably get my eyes tested as well. I keep putting it off but perhaps I shouldn't any longer.

snakypoet 

Ha ha, yes, the experts on blogging tell us we should write posts of numbered points if we wish to be read. But I seldom do, either; this one just happened to work out that way. If everyone did it all the time, it would get boring, don't you think?

If you keep feeling you should get your eyes tested, you probably shouldn't put it off too long. :)

I have read somewhere that tagging posts is mainly for the benefit of Google and other search engines, so people can find your stuff amongst other things on the subject. It may be so, but I do it for my own benefit, so that if I want to refer back to something, it's easier to locate. Not that I often do, but in theory....

goldmourn

I agree, it would get boring. Also, eventually people should tire of having everything listed to them, I would hope. But unfortunately, must admit, it does seem to attract the eye when one is reading through things. I'm certain that if I had made my long rambling posts broken down into numbered lists, even if it didn't make sense, it would have been read more than the way it is. Even by me! But thankfully, I did not do that. I do enjoy the format though. Maybe it's because I like poetry. Secretly, all these lists and buzz articles and whatnot don't realize that what they are truly yearning for are poems! Poetry! Stanzas! (Dare I hope that were true?)


Yes, I knew I was using the tags wrong the moment I started using them but I figured that I would exhaust myself obsessively compulsively trying to categorize my entries. Maybe if the tag system had begun when I started my journal, I probably would have done it correctly. Now, I would only do it right if I also felt I could stand to go through my entire history of posts and tag each one. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. I do think it is very beneficial to have tagged posts though - so much easier to find things on various subjects and common interests or related posts! For one's self and other readers.

I rambled too much. Yes, I should get my eyes tested. All of us, staring at our screens all the time, should take better care than we do.

captlychee

1. Writing posts in numbered form is handy if you want to make your points punchier, as the eye can glide down the list and see what it's interested in. But what of those of us who write lengthy meanderings about what we've had for lunch and where our traipsing has taken us?


2. Going through your old posts to tag them is a nice way to while away, say, a lengthy prison sentence, but otherwise it's not that much fun. However, putting a tag cloud on your page will show your tags in sizes relative to their importance, and that can be self-illuminating as well as making it easier for the readers to go straight you your posts about stuff they might be interested in.


3. Ah, tear supplements: put a drop in and wait twenty minutes for it to soak in before you can read your screen again. Now do one of those every hour. Now try to work through it. I ended up giving it up as a bad joke—and my eyes are as good today as if they were made of crumpled Glad Wrap…

snakypoet 

I have been using the tear supplements every half hour for three months, and (obviously) it doesn't take me 20 minutes to be able to read the screen. Without them, I was seeing so badly I was really worried. It is a huge relief to find that my vision problems were so easy to fix. (And now I can go on to doing them two-hourly.) I suspect it was the least of your problems!

captlychee

I suspect you weren't on Polygel or Celluvisc, as they are the thick ones that take forever to dissipate or whatever you call it, and kept me more or less blinded for twenty minutes at a time. But you're far better off supplementing the ol' lachrymal functions if you're going to stare unblinkingly at the screen.

It strikes me comically that one day I will need earwax supplements to keep my eardrums nice and supple to better appreciate the spoken word :)

snakypoet

No, I wasn't on those. :)

metahara.

Glad to hear all is well, odd adventure of it and all.

snakypoet 

Now that the odd adventure is well over, I am pretty happy about the outcome.