It was actually pretty interesting. Around three and a half hours of testing and discussion. (What wasn't interesting was having to catch the 5:25am commuter rail train to Boston, an hour away.)
First they did the standard eye chart stuff. Then they did the glaucoma test (numbing drops, press the blue light on your eyeball). Then it got more interesting; they sat me in a machine that measured the cornea (not sure how, but I stared at a tiny white light while they rotated a red and green bank of lights around and took pics). After that, they put in some dilating eyedrops. Then they did the ultrasound; it uses saline instead of a gel, but the same principle (squirt the eye, press the tiny ultrasound thingy on the eye, and move it around and take lots of zaps to get a picture of the eyeball dimensions). Then the optometrist measured my current glasses and did a preliminary retina/cataract look-see (the usual dilation exam, tilting you back and making you look at all four corners of the room while he shines a painfully bright light in your eye).
Then I went to meet the Big Gun, the Doc who I was referred to in the first place. This dude must've been around 60-65, and must be "Golden Fingers" 'cause he only does surgeries on Mondays and I guess they line up around the block for him. (Funny enough, the guy in RI who did my retinal detachment surgery in '01 also worked on Mondays, and I was lucky enough to nearly go blind on a Sunday night. Moral: if you do anything bad to your eyes, do it on Sunday.) He did his own quick retina/cataract check with the sit down machine (vertical slit-lamp, tiny magnifying glass) while mumbling quickly to two assistants who were scribing like Moses was reciting the Commandments. As most excellent doctors/scientists/engineers tend to be, he was a bit flaky and OCD (spoke quickly, repeated himself, quick hand gestures).
Apparently, cataract surgery has become so perfected that--once you're all set up in the room--they can bang it out in 10-30 minutes. They make a tiny 1/8-inch slit (which apparently heals quickly and self-seals so they don't even need to stitch it shut when done). They insert what amounts to a tiny sonic jackhammer which goes into your lens and pulverizes the shit out of the center of it where the cataract is, then vacuums up all the pieces, leaving the little empty skin-bag where the lens used to sit. Then they insert a new lens (depending on the type, it might even be folded and they insert it and open it up). They correct some/all of your vision while doing so; my vision is hideously nearsighted, probably around a -21 diopter (for those without glasses, this means I can see about two inches away without my Coke bottles on), and he said they can pretty much correct it so I only need glasses to read or drive. Sweet.
The issue with me is that the right eye doesn't need surgery right now. But I can't wear glasses to correct only the right eye because that eye is pretty bad too (around -19). When you have thick glasses, it's like looking through a telescope; the world is around 15% smaller-looking to you. And with the left eye almost 20/20, I would see one large image and one small image and my brain could never combine the two (not to mention I'd look like Bill the Cat). So once the left eye is done, I have to wear a corrective contact in the right eye only for the 1- to 5-years it'll be before I need surgery in that eye.
Fascinating shit, for what amounts to two bagfuls of jelly in your head.
Apparently you are some fly-by-night bullshit scam healthcare company. You keep calling my cellphone with a recording. I call the number back to rip someone a new asshole and it gives me the "not in service" recording.
Let me be clear about this: I do not want your healthcare scam. I do not want your phone calls. What I do want is for you to die a painfully slow and horrible death. I want a flaming AIDS tree covered in antifreeze to crash down onto your building and impale everyone who is responsible for this. As you lay dying, I want your wife to roll by in your car, laughing at you as she's getting f**ked by the neighbor. I want your kids to be in the backseat yellling "I hate you!" at your dying form. I want your dog to wander up and, instead of licking your dying face, pee on it. Your last breath should be taken with pee-burning eyes as you hear the sound of your wife getting reamed, your kids laughing, and your dog barking as it runs away. F**k off and die, and stop bothering people with your scamming f**king recorded phone calls. I'm going to be in Florida in April and, I swear, if I can find out where your f**king building is I'm coming by and Molotov cocktailing your ass. You f**king f**kstick. If there's a Hell, I hope you burn in it for eternity.
Now it's reported that Jesse James cheated on Sandra Bullock with some hoebag. Why is it that rich famous guys can't keep their dicks from wandering out of their pants, even when their wives are equally rich and famous (and some of them pretty decent-looking)? Why do so many have bizarre sex habits, obsessions, trysts with pornstars or hookers, etc.,.? Have sex with young girls, kill themselves with autoerotic asphyxiation, have porn addictions? Jesse James, Tiger Woods, David Letterman banging employees, John Edwards, Hugh Grant having sex with hookers, David Duchovny addicted to sex, Morgan Freeman diddling his stepgranddaughter or whatever she is, Woody Allen doing the same thing, Charlie Sheen addicted to porn... Jesus H. on a raft, what is it with these guys? It's a frightening glimpse into the male psyche. Would we ALL behave like this? Like Garth Brooks, who penned a bunch of love songs and then dumped his wife for a hot country singer? Makes you appreciate more the guys like Patrick Swayze and John Travolta, simply for remaining faithful to their wives (as far as we know), since it seems to be more the exception than the norm. I'd like to think money and fame wouldn't make me act like these guys, but who really knows who among us would make it rain on the hookers if we had the cash and the fame...