The Eyes Have It

Outside of the exam room, people probably momentarily thought that the doctor was removing a twelve inch splinter from Wm's eyes. pulling it out slowly. In reality, she'd only put one drop in the eye to dilate it. The exam was interesting on several levels. Wm was fascinated with the poster of diseased eyes hanging on the wall and interupted the doctor frequently to ask her what was wrong with each one. Though mostly very patient with him, it began to wear thin with the fifty-third question.

Trying to distract him with the fact she was shining a light directly into his light-sensitive eyes, I jokingly asked if she saw worms in there. Wm then graphically described the scene last week from "House" where a 25 foot tapeworm was pulled from the stomach during surgery. The doctor turned to look at me. "He doesn't watch that show, really," I sputtered. "He walked in at that moment."

"That show is quite graphic at times," she said.
"Yes, I know, that's what attracts him to it." (All you have to say is something is scary or bloody or gross and he's right there. Normally, we tease him out of the room by letting him watch something upstairs with Anna.)

The only distressing part of the day was that the technician quickly gave Wm a color-blindness test, declared that he was red-green colorblind, and sent us back into our room. I sat wondering, what does that mean? What does he see? Questions flew around the room in the air. Finally, the doctor came in, confirming that he was red-green colorblind.

Internet junkie that I am, I came home and scoured the internet. Google-ing it, I found many references, many photos of what the world might look like to a person with this, considered a disability. All day, when I had a moment, I looked it up. No cure. Can be rejected for military -hmmmm maybe an advantage there. No fighter pilots - yeah! Oh, but what paintings look like! Will he not see the colors of the master paintings, the reds of a sunset, the leaves in the fall? My heart sank. As disabilities go, I guess this was one that we could live with, but not something you wish for a child.

As I continued to read, I found a website that said RG colorblind people cannot distinguish between red and green apples. Having both. I asked Wm which he preferred. He said he liked the green one. He also was able to see the lines of the online color-blind tests I found. I am now thinking that he isn't colorblind, that there was some communication thing going on or misunderstanding, and that they didn't take time to do more. Now, I'm pissed! They sent me off thinking that this was unmistakeable and unchangeable. I'll have to continue to investigate further.

Oh, and you people that make those little pictures for eye exams - telephones don't look like that and haven't for the past, oh, twenty five years. Time for an update. Wm creatively said it looked like a chair to him, and it did.

As for me, I survived my exam as well but went about the day with dilated eyes, looking like either a bush baby or drug addict. "I've been to the eye doctor," I told everyone I met, hoping to forestall their speculations that I'd gone over the edge. My kids had a good ha-ha at my expense. Glad to be of service.