About 10 years ago, when I started university, I started to get pretty serious headaches. They felt like my eyes were rotting out from behind. After a few months of this, I went to get an eye exam - low and behold I needed glasses.
When I was growing up, I thought it was normal to be able to concentrate and focus my eyes, and then relax and have everything go blurry. I could read the eye charts with ease and tested at 20/10 vision. I had played basketball, learned to shoot and drive all with good success and without glasses. Times had changed.
Jesus was there too.
Fast forward 10 years ago to my scare on the motorcycle when I accidentally forgot to put on my glasses (remember, I'm able to concentrate and focus for a short time now). I rode down the street, came to an intersection and everything went blurry. I found my glasses but lost a lot of confidence.
So, laser eye surgery must be the solution right? I decided to find out.
I went to Gimbel Eye Centre here in Calgary. When I walked in, I couldn't help but think how nice the place looked. It had an air of quality about it. After all, Dr. Gimbel was the pioneer of laser eye surgery in Alberta. Sitting in the waiting room with my friend Diane, I turned to the side and noticed a large painting of a laser eye surgery. The machines were there, an assistant, the surgeon, but then something I found strange - Jesus was there too.
This is a blog about motorcycling around the world, not religion. However, for the sake of accuracy I'll tell you that I'm not a religious person. I try my best to respect the religion of others, and that's about it. However, I feel that Jesus shouldn't be in the operating room with me. What if I was muslim? Buddist? a Jedi? Does the surgeon need luck? Do I? Am I going to die? It all left a bad first impression on me. And then came the testing.
Gimbel Eye Centre is set up for the best possible efficiency. I felt like it was like herding cattle and determining which cows could have surgery. Then getting passed on to the sales department for misleading information.
There were small rooms with five machines and five technicians, five patients and a couple of guests. We bumped into each other, could overhear other people's testing, it was horrible. You get herded around to different waiting rooms to meet with different people, don't even meet with the surgeon (have to book a surgery for that), get told you are a marginal candidate by the optomotrist but an excellent candidate by the sales department. You even get herded out a different door from the one in which you arrive.
Needless to say, the combination of being treated like cattle, being told they'd rather insert a contact lens INSIDE my eye rather than laser me (and not learning ANY of the results of my testing, and knowing that the surgeon would like Jesus in the room for surgery was enough for me to say, "not a flying chance in hell would I ever go to Gimbel Eye Centre". So I went to visit the Mitchell Eye Centre for another round of testing...
More to come... (and apologies for the lack of posts this week. I'm "Sprinting to the Finish" at the office)
No comments:
Post a Comment