[Leica] My soft-focus eye
Peter Klein
boulanger.croissant at gmail.com
Tue Aug 17 23:20:15 PDT 2021
I gotta rant.
Recently, I noticed that the vision in my right eye was getting "smeary"
and would not come into sharp focus at any distance. It looks like
taking a photo through a very dirty lens or filter. The other eye is
fine. I called my ophthalmologist. The work-from-home receptionist
tried to "handle" me and offload me to an optometrist. I had to insist,
forcefully, that I had had several complications after cataract surgery,
and that I could tell the difference between the need for new glasses
and a medical issue. She finally agreed to give me an appointment--in
two months.
Fortunately, my eye doc had a cancellation a week later. After a full
eye exam, the problem appears to be exactly what I thought it was--the
membrane behind my lens implant was growing back. So I am looking, in
effect, through a veil. I'd had this same known complication in the
other eye some years back, which is how I recognized it. It's not
serious, and it is easily corrected with a brief, painless laser
procedure that punches a hole through the offending membrane.
BUT... my eye doc doesn't do that. So now I have to see his cornea
specialist colleague. Who can see me in... wait for it... two months.
Then if this second doc concurs with the first, then they will schedule
the procedure. Who knows how long I will have to wait for that.
In the meantime:
1. Is two month's wait time normal these days?
2. Why do doctors hire people whose sole purpose seems to be to prevent
you from seeing them? I've had several instances in my life where
something was seriously wrong, but I had to argue forcefully to a
dismissive receptionist or medical assistant to be grudgingly given an
appointment. In one case I was coming down with full-blown pneumonia, in
another, one of my retinas was detaching. In the former case I was told
to man up and go back to work, in the latter, that it didn't sound like
anything serious, and I should call next week to schedule an
appointment. If I had given in to these gatekeepers, I would likely have
ended up hospitalized or blind in one eye.
3. (obligatory on-topic content) While my right (shooting) eye remains
in Pictorialist soft-focus mode, I can't focus my Leica RF, and even
using an autofocus Olympus isn't pleasant. Shooting with my left eye
feels awkward and weird. Have any of you had to switch shooting eyes,
and how did you do it? Is it worth the effort to switch for a couple of
months?
--Peter
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