If Eyes are for Seeing, What is Faith For?
Level 8 Ophthalmology
I enter the hospital. I catch the lift to the 8th floor.
I walk to the reception area to await my turn. I line up with the other patients, to get my name marked off as present for the Eye Clinic.
“Life has come full circle for me,” I think to myself.
Once I marked the roll for attendance. I was a teacher. Now I am being marked for attendance. The reversal of rolls is not lost on me.
My visual acuity nurse, Megan, looked a bit concerned when she took the pressure of my right eye. I enquire what it is. “31,” she replies. I recognize the pressure to be too high.
After the operation for Glaucoma, it had dropped to 4, and a week later, it was 11, (nearly in the normal range). In the last month it has almost tripled. The nurse checks my pressure with an Inter-Ocular Pressure Gauge(an I.O.P. gauge for short),and then the specialist doctor will double-check the pressure with an instrument called the ‘Goldman’. For this the eye needs to be dilated, so that an accurate measurement can be obtained. She excuses herself for a moment, saying, “I need to go and check with the doctor to see if it’s safe to dilate you.”
Eyes are such delicate things.
It takes years of medical training to become a doctor. To specialize in the treatment of the eyes — well, that requires more training again.
I started my journey seeing a doctor for cataract surgery. However, the cataract surgery was unsuccessful. The retina detached. I was referred to a different specialist — a specialist with more specific training.
This ophthalmologist re-attached the retina to the back of the eye, inserting silicone oil to hold it in place. Later, the same specialist had to operate to remove the oil. Unfortunately for me, he could not remove all the silicon oil from the back of the eye (which was used to re-attach the retina). This meant that the vitreous fluid in the back of the eye could not drain adequately. This caused the internal pressures to increase in the back of the eye, which in turn damaged the optic nerve responsible for giving sight.
The doctor tried countless regimes of drops to counteract the spiking pressures in the eye. He varied the combination of drops and also their frequency.
Nothing worked. Nothing brought down the internal ocular pressures. I was referred to another specialist — but going public — I was put on the waiting list.
I now had glaucoma, a serious eye disease, which, if not checked, results in blindness.
I met the glaucoma specialist — Mark.
He was so busy, he said, when I first presented to the clinic for my initial consultation. Indeed, there must have been fifty patients to be seen in just a few hours. True — not all were to see Mark for their glaucoma. There was another doctor taking patients as well.
Being the social person that I am, and wanting to pass the time amicably, I chatted to other patients. An elderly gentleman told me in plain language, what was wrong with his eyes.
“They’re buggered”, he said. His son, sitting with him, quipped, “He has learnt all the medical vocabulary.”
Add that to the ailments of the eyes, I thought.
When you have that diagnosis, there is possiblyno specialist that can adequately help.
My eyes glance toward the walls of the waiting room. I smile when I notice the poster displayed there. In bold letters, it announces:
GETTING ANGRY
ONLY MAKES
THINGS WORSE.
Beside this announcement on the poster, is the request — Safety for all.
I notice that words ‘angry’ and ‘worse’ are in ‘fire-engine red’. The other font is coloured white. The background is black. I get the message.
I get the message loud and clear.
Patients become angry when put in a stressful situation. Everyone loses patience.
I recall what this day has meant for me:
- Liaising with my wife to drive me here.
- Coming from the country town to the metropolitan city - a 3 hour drive.
- The hassles of city traffic.
- Parking the car and getting the train into the hospital.
- Waiting to be seen.
- Waiting for my vision to be checked.
- Waiting for the consultation with the specialist.
I can well imagine people getting angry.
Despite the pain in the right eye that I have been experiencing since the last consultation, I am relieved that my sight in the right eye is stable. I can still see the nurse’s hand waving, and discern the number of fingers she holds up. It’s now been a while since I cannot read the largest letter on the eye chart without the assistance of pinhole glasses.
Mark examines my eyes with his instruments, suggests an eye drop to mitigate the rising pressures in the right eye, and I am right to go. Another appointment is scheduled for a month’s time.
What does this have to do with faith? Does it belong in the publication FaithHacking at all?
And I would answer thus. Ordinary days, where nothing but the mundane happens, reveals and matures my character as much as any other day.
It’s a series of small steps in the right direction.
Did I get worried when my wife made an unwise choice? How was my level of irritability today? Am I trusting God is in control despite the ongoing difficulties with my eyes? Do I confess my judgmental attitudes to people who whinge and complain, despite receiving the best in medical care that is available? Was I content to take my turn, to remain patient, to refrain from anger?
God is growing me as a person as he walks with me along life’s way. I remember there is a reason that I love The Footprints poem.There are things I do not understand now, and my part is always to trust.
All life is a matter of trusting someone, when you think about it……
And isn’t that what Faith is?
