Eye of the CHEATah

I had an eye exam last week, which is one of my least favorite doctor appointments.

Hey, we’re going  to shoot puffs of air into your eyeballs at close range, followed by an exam that you don’t get to study for.

An exam that I was pretty sure I was going to fail.

My new doctor, Dr. K, entered the room, and immediately began asking about my medical history

“Well, my grandpa had glaucoma and, um …” I trailed off, distracted.

I was frantically looking around for the eye chart on her wall so I could start memorizing some of the letters. 

It was my only hope of passing, and sure, some might call that cheating, but I call it cramming for the exam.

Unfortunately, Dr. K didn’t have an old school eye chart, and instead, she had me read the letters through a big eyeball apparatus.

We started with my right eye.

Ever since I was a kid, my right eyeball has pretty much done most of the work.

That’s because I have a “lazy” left eye.

I like to think of my left eye as not so much “lazy,” but “laid back.”

With my right eye, I read the letters on the chart.

When I was done, Dr. K, smiled and said, “20/20.”

Way to go, right eyeball! 

Before I could memorize any of the letters, Dr. K flipped a lever, which covered up my right eye.

“Can you read this? she asked, flipping through rows of fuzzy lines and curves.

I shook my head. “Nope …No …  Not at all.”

“How about this?” she asked, finally arriving on letters that were roughly the size you might see on a billboard.

“Um, F,” I guessed.

“So close!” she said. “It’s like an F…”

“E?” I said.

“Yes!” she said, excitedly.

I squinted at the next letter, which actually looked like a number.

 “2?” I said.

“And what letter does 2 look like?” she asked. “Maybe a letter at the end of the alphabet…” 

“Z?” I said.

“Excellent!”

I read the next letter. “P?”

“But what if that P had a line attached to it?” she suggested.

“An R?” I guessed.

“Yes!” she said, applauding me. “YOU are doing great!”

Yes, WE were!

I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on here, but it didn’t really feel like we were doctor and patient. 

It felt more like we were study buddies.

All I knew was, I was doing so well that my doctor study buddy had me attempt the next line up, which was basically a drunken blur.

However, with just the right context clues and subtle prompting, it’s amazing how one’s vision can improve.

“I’m thinking it’s an O …”

“Hmm,” she said. “What if, instead of curved lines, they were straight, and they crossed over each other?”

“X!” I yelled.

At this point, we were practically high-fiving each other.

My “leisurely” left eye hadn’t performed this well in years.

However, as we finished up our eye exam, I began to wonder, what’s in it for Dr. K?

Is it like the school system, where it just looks better if all the students pass their tests.

Maybe the ophthalmology association has a similar motto, “No eye patient left behind.”

Either way, it works for me because now I no longer have to worry about my annual eye exam.

Because let’s be honest, thanks to Dr. K, it’s more of a group project.