tomhudson's Journal: Good News, and gender-specific waiting room behaviour

The good news? Yesterday's hospital visit to examine my retinas ...

In the past, the bleeding in my left eye would stop for a bit, then resume. A few weeks ago, it stopped again, and so far, so good ... to the point where I can do things that don't require 100% vision in both eyes, such as watching TV, without much of a problem (or this could be testimony to "you can get used to anything given enough time").

The big red/black twisty blotch in the middle of my left eyes' field of view is fading, and their exam yesterday confirmed that the fibrous "stalk" of the remains of the blood vessels that attaches it to the nerve is now clear, so the blood in the rest should gradually be absorbed, and hopefully everything else will also break down over time and be absorbed.

The right eye, which continues to function fine even though it was also showing signs of advanced disease, they think they caught in time. There were still a few vascular growths which might have been new, so we played one more round of "sharks with frikking lasers" yesterday to burn a few hundred more holes in the retina (this lowers the level of oxygen permeating the retinal wall to retard vascular growth) and we'll see how it looks in a few months, but we're all optimistic as all heck :-)

Which brings me to some observations on gender-specific waiting room behaviour.

You have a bunch of men and women, all with a common reason for being there, who might benefit from comparing notes and experiences (plus avoiding being bored to death). I'm chatting away with the woman next to me (okay, she's complaining for an hour and I'm listening for an hour - she's a good complainer and I'm a sympathetic listener, so it works out good, and we sort of know each other from the previous visit), and I'm picking up a few pointers on what to expect from when/if they have to inject stuff directly into my eyeballs, and she learned something new about how you don't have to see the dosage on the insulin pens - just count the clicks - for when she injects her younger brother (who apparently can't bring himself to stick a needle into himself, so she has to do it 4x a day ... and she really needs to help find him a wife, and she'd make sure that woman ended up rich ... )

The men? They're all sitting beside each other just looking at their feet, their hands, the wall, us (when they think we won't notice) - anything and anywhere but each other.

No wonder they all looked so glum. Come on guys, lighten up a bit. You're only hurting yourselves. It's a waiting room, not the urinal test.