26. My eyes are fine, so why can't I see the way?

Lost at the hospital.

Dear Reader,

The travelling diabetic retinopathy¹ screening team was at our tiny local community hospital in September, and I went along for my annual eye photographs to be done. This is something I’ve taken to calling ‘ordeal by dilation drops’ because wow, they sting.

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Photo by Brands&People on Unsplash

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I know our hospital well: I spent most of the morning at their minor injuries unit one Boxing Day having the flapping tip of my right thumb stuck back down after my hungover and grumpy state had caused me to take less care than I should have while chopping up Christmas leftovers for soup.

When on an August night a few years ago an alarming bout of the rigours convinced my husband that I was seriously ill I ended up at the same community hospital seeing the out-of-hours doctor, who diagnosed me with the raging infection which would put me out of action until that October.

And every year for the past three decades I have attended the retinopathy screening clinic.

Reader, I know that hospital.

With nobody staffing the front desk to check me in I followed the signs to ‘Retinopathy Screening’, which led me through a colourful walk-through waiting room for a children’s clinic to a corridor with two open doors bang opposite each other. A sign on one of them invited me to take a seat and wait to be called by the technician.

I didn’t wait long, summoned in moments by a smiling lady in a white coat and blue hospital mask. I was asked to read the chart with each eye and to see how far down I got: right eye all the way down, left eye not quite. Still, I gather that’s way better than 20/20 on both sides, so I wasn’t complaining.

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Photo by David Travis on Unsplash

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But I did complain about the drops. I always do because I’m a baby. Like every year, for a split second I felt nothing, and I thought with considerable relief that they must at last this time have reformulated the drops.

Reader, they hadn’t. They stung like mad.

I was sent back, blinking, across to the empty room opposite to wait for my pupils to dilate. ‘About 20 minutes, okay?’ Okay with me. I could read my book.

I fished it out of my bag, hoping I’d manage a whole chapter before the world started to blur around me. No such luck: within just a few minutes the words were swimming across the page.

Actually, it’s not the blurriness that’s the real problem: it’s the inability to concentrate. Reading is so much more difficult if your focus is even slightly off. I tried my phone screen instead – not to read, but to catch up on an online word game I play with my mum. No go. The screen was worse than the pages of my book, despite the big, bold black capitals on the virtual letter tiles.

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By now my pupils must have been huge, because the white-painted room was suddenly painfully bright. I stood up to turn the lights off and immediately wished I hadn’t. I felt kind of ‘other’, not quite present. Perhaps even a little seasick.

This was pathetic: come on, Rebecca: you’re used to this! Sighing, I sat back down, closed my watering eyes and zoned out.

Soon I was called back across the corridor. As I struggled to rest my chin comfortably on the machine the technician suddenly laughed. ‘Hang on, I’ll adjust it – you’re a little taller than my last patient!’ The camera did its stuff: two blinding flashes later the job was done. ‘Well done! We’ll write to you once we’ve analysed the snaps. See you next time!’

I turned right left out of the room to head back to the car park and my waiting husband, who was designated driver for today thanks to my compromised vision. I didn’t get far.

‘Rebecca!’ I turned round. ‘It’s that way!’ The kind technician was pointing the other way down the corridor.

‘Didn’t I come from this way?’ I replied, pointing in the direction I’d been heading. I was confused. ‘Maybe, but I don’t expect so. I mean, that’s not the way you’d’ve arrived from the entrance.’

I was cross with myself, but tried to laugh it off. ‘Ah well, I get lost everywhere, you know – even – especially – in buildings. And there are signs all over the place in here – I’ve got no excuse – I mean, what am I like?

I realised I was talking really loudly in an attempt to make light of my embarrassment. With no adjustment to my volume, I continued. ‘At least the waiting room’s empty – I’d hate for anyone else to have heard what an idiot I’ve just been!’

We said our goodbyes again, and I strode off in the right direction this time, into the walk-through waiting room for the children’s clinic I’d passed through earlier.

Reader, it was full. Pairs of eyes – children’s and adults’ – looked straight up at me. Feeling desperately foolish I didn’t stick around long enough to see whether they contained sympathy or laughter.

Upset, my own eyes were watering anew when my husband met me outside in the autumn sunshine. ‘Bad luck’, he soothed me. ‘Those drops must have really stung!’

I paused. ‘They certainly did.’ But somehow, getting lost in the hospital had stung so much more.

Love,

Rebecca

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1. Taken from the appointment letter sent to me by University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust:
Diabetic eye screening detects changes caused by diabetes that could damage your eyesight. You may be completely unaware of these changes but they are usually very treatable.
Diabetic eye screening can detect early signs of diabetic retinopathy, which is one of the most common causes of blindness of people of working age and can affect anyone with diabetes.
When the condition is caught early, treatment is effective at reducing or preventing damage to your sight.
You may want to bring sunglasses, as your eyes will be sensitive to light following screening.
Drops will be put in your eyes that may sting and will affect your vision.
Do not drive until your vision returns to normal, which can take up to 6 hours (you may want to ask someone to drive you to and from your appointment).