I'll be looking at the moon

[austin_dern]

It is a recurring amusement to my sister-in-law that our family never tells one another anything. Some of this is exaggeration, amounting to a reluctance to keep retelling anecdotes and risk wearing them out. But some of that is justified, because we do have a habit of deciding too many things wouldn't be interesting. My friends who read between lines here may have noticed that trait in me.

So: my mother didn't mention that she had an eye doctor's appointment last week, probably because she didn't think this was interesting. My sister-in-law did, but she's primed to expect to have to drive anyone to and from any doctor appointments because her husband reacts with extreme sensitivity to doctor's offices. As in, yes, many people will faint at the sight of a needle, or when blood is drawn. Fewer will faint at the discussion of such. My brother once fainted and stayed unconscious for twenty minutes because he was chatting over Instant Messenger with a friend who was talking about having his blood pressure taken. My brother going to an eye doctor could require half a week of preparation and recovery. That my mother might just go and not mention it until it was over seemed extreme.

But the good news from the eye doctor's: my mother's cataracts have gotten worse! Oh, and apparently my mother has had cataracts the past three years, which somehow didn't get passed along to me. But it is good news that they've gotten worse because now they're bad enough to operate on, according to my sister-in-law. As she tracked down the story, this is a good thing because after the operations -- one eye at a time over the next month -- my mother should be able to see without glasses for any purposes. And yes, that is good news, and my mother even thought to mention it after my father and I said we'd heard she went to the eye doctor.

Oh, and my father went to the eye doctor too, and he has something with his nerves that is either better or worse. We assume it's nothing too bad because he isn't talking about it.

Trivia: A lawsuit attempting to halt the Royal Zoological Gardens' sale of elephant Jumbo to P T Barnum alleged that it was ``immoral'' to sell an animal judged dangerous to keep, rather than to kill it. source: Seeing the Elephant, Eric Scigliano.

Currently Reading: The Viking Rocket Story, Milton W Rosen.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Erf. It must make it tough for your brother to get medical matters taken care o with that phobia. Blood pressure.. which the testing of doesn't require any blood to leave its normal courseways.

Thankfully, I don't have this issue, which is useful for being in a job where the cutting of myself is considered a regularity, and there are regular procedures in place for dealing with slicing a finger and getting blood on the potatoes. (in simplest form: Step one: stop the bleeding. Step two: throw out the potatoes.) Also, I've given my twentieth pint of blood as of Friday, which remains only a mildly unpleasant experience.

I do hope your mother's cataract surgery shall go well.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It does turn any doctor's appointment into a two-person affair, involving cancelled half-days at minimum at work. On the other hand, it's kind of amusing and it turns dull things like dental check-ups into those silly events you talk about for weeks to come.

He's the anomaly, though. The rest of the family is fine with pretty near everything medical, and my mother would happily drive herself home from [ hypothetical ] surgery on a key ventricle if the doctors weren't so stubborn about recovery time.

Thank you, though.