Saturday, February 05, 2005
Daily Grin February 5
A three hour tour.... a three hour tour!!!
I had a weird thing happen yesterday. Visual halo at night. Then this morning, my eye was tearing a little. I thought I might have the beginnings of an eye infection. Did a little reading on the internet and halos are one of those 911 eye problems. I called our Health Links line (staffed by nurses) to ask if this was something I could watch... see my family doc... see an optometrist.... She asked me a gazillion questions and determined that I needed medical attention today. She advised I go to our Urgent Care center.
Long story short, I may have corneal edema, but the doc ruled out glaucoma, retinal detachment and retinopathy. I also walked away wondering how spending 6 hours waiting to see a doctor could happen in an "urgent" care setting. The triage nurse told me that my type of problem put me higher on the priority list, and everyone assured me that it was absolutely necessary that I be seen by a doctor today. I don't think I'll ever go back to urgent care... I'll use the ER next time I have a situation that requires immediate attention. The triage system at UC sucks. Some poor woman had fallen and landed on her tailbone. She had numbness in her hands and was in agony. Her husband was trying to handle her in a wheelchair, a toddler and a newborn. The woman was in obvious distress and was told that she'd have to wait unless her legs were numb or her BP was thru the roof. This is how free medical care works. It doesn't. They did manage to get her in pretty quick, but they did make her wait and judging how long I waited in the exam room before a doc saw me (2 hours), getting her in quickly probably didn't make a big difference to her.
I am to see an optometrist in 3 days if I'm still seeing halos. Apparently, this problem may be viral and it's not a definitive diagnosis. It's just when you rule out all the other causes of visual halo in dim light, this is what's left. I'll see an optometrist in 3 days if my vision is still blurry in that eye.
Alright, now that i have THAT off my chest... here's a real groaner for ya! J
~~~
From the "Don't take life too seriously" department....
You Know You Are Addicted to Coffee If...
Your eyes stay open when you sneeze.
~~~
There was a crowd of bees flying around one day. These bees were most peculiar. They were powered by gasoline, rather than the allergenic goodies that bees usually eat. As the crowd flew along, periodically a bee or two would start to sputter; it would fly down to a gas station, drink up the gas spilled in fueling a car, and then fly up and rejoin the crowd.
One bee began to sputter a little, but flew right by an open gas station. As he passed the second station, he coughing badly, but still he flew on. Finally, as he was on his last fumes, he dove down to a station and gassed up.
When he rejoined the crowd, his neighbor challenged him: "Look, you passed right by an open station when you started to get low. You passed another station when you were perilously low. And finally, you ran out of gas just in time to glide into that last station. Are you crazy?"
He replied, "Well, it's like this. The first station was a Gulf station. I really don't like Gulf at all. The second station was a Texaco station. That's even worse. But the third station was an Esso station. Let me tell you, Esso is my brand of gasoline. You know what they say don't you? ...
There's an Esso Bee in every crowd!"
~~~
// posted by Daily Grin @ 2/05/2005 10:41:00 PM 
