blindsided

i don't tend to have positive interactions with the medical community. Most are incredulous about my weight, lifestyle, smoking and drinking habits, refusal to drop dead on the spot etc. My GP has got to know me over the last few years and seems to have placed my file in the humour him/too hard basket. He doesn't badger me too much, offering more gentle encouragement and the odd hot tip for basic survival. So when I visited an optometrist today I really shouldn't have been too surprised by what happened.

The optometrist was a comely sort of lass, from Hertfordshire in the old dart and gave me the usual eye tests and was well into her spiel on glasses and how awesome they are when she got to my left eye. One of the reasons (apart from finding it tough to read in dim light) that i went to get my eyes checked is if I'm tired or its dark, the left eye gets a little blurry, with lights sparklig or even tripling if I stare too hard. Apparently this is not a good thing. Cue 3/4 hour worth of tests and the comely lass getting a more worried frown. The upshot is I have something I have never fucking heard of wrong with me . Its called Keretoconus. It means your corneas are out of shape, getting pointy instead of nice and round. This gives you blurry, trippy vision and eventually can render you legally blind. (which I gather means you can still see big stuff like cars and whatnot, but you mightn't be certain it's definitely a car it might be a horse. But it doesn't go all dark which is nice). There are options apparently, hard contact lenses to start with and then you can graduate to corneal grafts. Anyway she gave an appointment in two weeks to make sure it all wasn't just a bad dream and she'll make some reasonably nice glasses for the other eye which is merely lame rather than fully buggered. I'm a touch freaked out but hey I guess it ain't fatal and given the current advances in medical technology I could be rocking an awesome pigs eye or some such in 10 years time.