The Eyes Have It

For all of my adult life I have been getting my eyes checked every two years. Last night I saw my eye doc and he said he hadn't seen me in 3 years....whoa! Don't know how that happened. Anyway, I had a good check up, everything looks fine. I haven't had optic neuritis and there's no sign of it now.

I had the chance to ask Dr. Cruz about some of his equipment. I specifically wanted to know about the magnification of the tools he uses to look at my eyes. It's 10 times magnification but capable of 60 times (just like my microscope). I told him about the world's best Christmas gift ever, and he was excited, too, as he thinks his kids would like it. I also told him I wanted to check out the Wookie's retina and he said as long as the pupil is dilated I should be able to see it with my microscope. Yay!

Several years ago, probably 7 or 8, I had an ocular event that necessitated an extra trip to Dr. Cruz and then to see a specialist the next day at the hospital. Everything was fine in the end; turns out it was the typical flashes and floaters that usually resolve themselves. But he saw me quickly because of the MS. That's when I found out that he did some research on optic neuritis with a couple of the neuros at the MS clinic in Halifax. Cool. So he knows the players in my health care, and he's done some extra study of the issues particular to MS patients. It was just another example of the horseshoe I have so firmly entrenched in my butt.

It's strange, but I never sought out my current family doc (I got a referral to her from another GP when I was living in another province and planning my move back to Halifax 15 years ago), but, boy, was I lucky to get her. And as for Dr. Cruz, I think I just looked him up in the yellow pages when I needed an eye exam. I got lucky, as I later discovered after the MS diagnosis. Even my dentist is very interested in my MS, reading up on stuff related to it.

And all these folks seem to have an excellent sense of humour, so can appreciate my attitude to most situations. Or maybe they're just being polite, laughing at my jokes and agreeing with my observations.

S.

The pics are one of my eyes and one of the Wookie's.