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Eye Doctor
2004-02-09 - 1:44 p.m.


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I was laying back in the chair at the eye doctor's office when he approached me with a big needle.

"The needle hurts a little bit, the injection hurts a lot."  the doctor said in forceful Asian speed rap.

He'd already stung my eye with rubbing alcohol and muttered at me in the Asian way which is supposed to be settling to the nerves, and perhaps is, but seems to remind me only of veitnam movies I have seen.  Movies where the torturer wanders around his round-eye captives muttering to calm them in a superficial way, but is really only going about his buisiness of torturing or killing them.  In fact, he's really just trying to soothe them to make his job easier, because the reality is that he doesnt give a shit.  Hates americans.  Just wants to go back to his hooch, puntang and dope smoking.  But first he's got to kill these damn gajin westerner's, see...

He peeled back my eyelid and stuck the needle in.  To my surprise, this did not hurt.

The plunger went down, and the entire area burned as if napalmed.

I stiffened up in my chair.

"I DIDN'T LIE TO YOU!" he said loudly, for no real reason.  I mean, doc, I'm sitting right there, you're basically in my ear.

He went away for five minutes to tend to other patients.  Apparently it takes that long for the numbness to start.

Five minutes went by and I noticed that half the area was numb.

He came back, put in some eye drops and clamped a retractor on my eyelid.  That hurt, and, in a calm voice, I told him so.

"You're not supposed to feel that."  he said.  And then gave me another eye drop, clamping the retractor down harder.

And as I lay there, I felt the incision to the inside of my eye lid.  Two little cuts.  I felt the inoculating loop as he dug into my eyelid, pulling out puss and blood.

I grit my teeth and held my breath.

"Remember to breathe!" the assistant said.

I gasped in and out quickly.

The doctor looked at her. "He wasn't breathing" she said.

"I'm concerned that you're still feeling this."  the doctor muttered quietly, not doing anything to alleviate the pain.

I sat there and took it.  The doctor continued to dig into the chalazion on my eyelid, which had sat there for a good long while, months, and gotten infected.  Sort of like a sty that wouldn't go away.

And, as I am the featured reader at this month's poetry reading, I didnt want to get up in front of a bunch of people and look something like the Swamp Thing, or Pizza the Hut from the movie 'SpaceBalls'.

The doctor dug away.

"God!  There's no end to this! It just keeps going on and on!" he bitched.

I laughed a deep gut laugh that filled the room.  Still, I could feel his little metal instrument digging in my eyelid, feel it against the inner skin at the bottom.

It sucked.  A lot.

Eventually, though, he finished.  Gave me some hurried instructions, shook my hand for the umpteenth time and fled.

The nurse put some ointment in my eye and gave me some more instructions.

"Ok!" I said, "Its numb now!  You can tell the doctor we can get started!"

She laughed, but really, I was being serious.


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