OFF THE PAGE WITH RAYMOND ATKINS

OFF THE PAGE WITH RAYMOND ATKINS

A monthly column that takes us off the page and into the life of Raymond Atkins

I am firmly into that period of my life known as the gradual decline. Don’t get me wrong; I expected the “decline” part, but this whole “gradual” thing is a real problem, because it sneaks up on you, and by the time you realize what is happening, it has already happened. As an example, I recently noticed that I was having trouble driving at night. If you talk to my wife, she will tell you that I have always had trouble driving at night, and sometimes during the day as well, but she doesn’t always know what she’s talking about. Just don’t tell her I said so. Anyway, I went to get my eyes checked, thinking perhaps I needed new glasses, and it was at this examination that my latest gradual decline was revealed.

Eye Tech: Read the letters please.

Ray: What letters?

Eye Tech: The letters on the wall.

Ray: What wall?

It turned out that I had a cataract, which these days is usually no big deal, but I also had some other things going on in there that required the expertise of a Big City Doctor (caps are intentional…), because I never do anything the simple way when I can make it more complicated and expensive; that’s just how I roll. What I want to talk about today is not the medical care I received—which was exceptional once we actually got around to it—but rather the overall experience. Basically, the ways of city folks are strange. If this were a freshman essay, the previous sentence would be the thesis statement.

The first thing that happens in Big City Medicine is the paperwork. No, not your medical records and such. Those may come later, after the color of your coin is determined. This initial step happens about a month before you see an actual doctor, and all you need at this point is an insurance card, a credit card with some room on it, a phone, and a couple of hours to spare. Once you have established your medical need by listening to The Girl From Ipanema thirty-three times while you are on hold, a harried-sounding person comes onto the line, and if you are very insistent and won’t take no for an answer, you get to pay in advance for what you may later owe.

Man, oh man. How sweet is that? As much as I love being a writer with all of the money and fame that comes with it, I think I should have been a Big City Doctor instead, and if it hadn’t been for that whole medical school thing, I might have been, and you would be reading a column written by someone else right now, and Mandy would be sad but wouldn’t know why. By the way, if your upcoming procedure breaks down at this preliminary monetary stage, don’t despair because you still have options. In the case of an eye procedure, for example, they have some really nice eye patches available on Amazon. I had my eye (get it?) on a nice leather one with a cubic zirconia inlay in the shape of Skinny Elvis, and I was sort of looking forward to rocking that look, but luckily my insurance carrier was in a good mood that day, so it is still available if you are in the market.

Speaking of my insurance carrier and its willful ways, I will just be honest with you and admit that I have no idea what my policy actually covers, or when, or where. I once tried to sit down with my policy in an attempt to educate myself, but after about an hour of that I ended up with a severe headache behind my left eye, one that I still suspect was the causal factor of all of my subsequent eye woes. The document was about 100 pages long and it read like it was written by Charlie Brown’s mom’s dyslexic sister. I will pause a moment while you piece that one together.

If you’re wondering which Big City had its way with me, incidentally, I am not at liberty to say here in the magazine, mostly because Mandy gets sort of fussy when I insult seven million people with one sentence. And I suppose it’s possible that some of you might actually live there, bless your hearts, and I wouldn’t want you to think I was poking fun at your place of residence. Still, I guess I ought to give a hint, so let’s just say that William Tecumseh Sherman once burned the place down, and when it was rebuilt, the new owners decided to name half of the streets after a fruit tree. There. That’s pretty subtle, and if you figure it out, don’t tell the others.

Back to Big City Medicine. If you make it this far into your procedure, it will be time to obtain sign-offs, permissions, and releases. They like their bases covered down there in The Big City in case anything unfortunate happens, so at this stage you will have to get every doctor you have ever known to sign off on the upcoming event. In my case I had to obtain approvals from my internist, my cardiologist, my ophthalmologist, my optometrist, my otolaryngologist, and a writer friend of mine who is a retired urologist I have never actually met in person. This all seemed excessive to me since my procedure was to be performed under local anesthetic, but what do I know? I got it all taken care of, and then it was time to go to The Big City.

One of the ironies of The Big City medical experience, at least where eye care is concerned, is that all of the medical offices look kind of the same, and they all are identified with tasteful little signs that might make the zoning board happy but which are pretty much useless for a one-eyed man trying to locate a specific one in unfamiliar territory while fending off an aggressive Uber driver whose comfort zone is about three inches off of said one-eyed man’s rear bumper. I finally found the place after consulting her at a red light. Actually I went back there to suggest to her what she could do with that horn she kept blowing at me, but she knew right where my destination was and apparently had a side-hustle going on leading one-eyed people from out of town to their appointments, so I gave her ten dollars and made it to my procedure on time.

As far as the actual procedure that all of the above led up to was concerned, I really only have one observation to share with you. Prior to beginning, I was handed a Sharpie by one of my nurses and told to use that precise medical instrument to mark the eye I was there to have worked on. Apparently that whole left eye/ right eye thing was a source of confusion in Big City Medicine, and they wanted to rule out any unintentional unhappiness. I mean, what could go wrong with having a slightly-drugged half-blind anxious old man jab at his bad eye with a sharp instrument, right?

You will be happy to hear that all of that is behind me now, and my Big City Doctor has assured me that the procedure was a success, and now after I heal a bit more I can go ahead with my cataract surgery with my local doctor. I am taking this on faith, you understand, because I am still blind as a stone in my left eye, and I have a black circle drawn around it on top of that. They should have said that a little dot above my eyebrow was sufficient if that was what they wanted. What am I, a Big City Doctor?