You know how all of a sudden someone comes into your life and just sort of grows on you? Subtly at first, but determinedly. Then it comes to the stage when no matter how hard you try, you can't tear your eyes away from her, 'cos she's at the corner of every glance, an ache that would get better only if you kept away from it. But you can't..The same is the case with a stye. Under the left eye.
We-ell to be honest, to hold an innocuous stye in such deep contempt is perhaps a tad unfair. This was a creature of the genus 'Stye-icky-us', but with a twist. As my opthalmologist so eloquently put it, it was a 'stye-er mamatata bhai', known in finest literature as a chalazion. Notice my usage of the past tense. For today, I am officially rid of the vile tumour that has been obscuring my vision for the past three months. Today is also the day I had my first experience of surgery. It was a cheap surgery and to my dismay and considerable distress, I was not administered a solid dose of whatever anaesthetic that makes Liz Lemon lose her senses every time she visits the dentist. I was really looking forward to that. Well you can't have it all!
Did I say cheap surgery? I meant minor surgery. Although for all intents and purposes I might well have been tied up in some garage in Mexico with a blade-happy goon in green overalls who croons reassuring words into my ear like "Sorry. No hablo Ingles" or "Ooh what does this button do?". I'm sorry, but if I'm undergoing operation, I want to pay a whole lot more than a measly 1000 bucks. At least it will loom over the surgeon's head as a hefty reward he's foregoing by deciding to sell my retinas in the black market. But the opthalmologist (a make-shift surgeon as it turned out) was a nice and bouncy character. He looks the kind of person who handles all his daily affairs with the kind of aplomb you reserve for greeting your evil relatives after two healthy pegs of Jack Daniel's finest. Or maybe it was the moustache. I find short men with moustaches really easy to trust. In retrospect, they must have thought the same of Hitler.
If Paraffin is an anaesthetic, it should have kicked in before the injection was thrust into my eyelid. If it's a wax, it was probably applied to my eye to add a certain aesthetic quality. Maybe after the bandages are removed, it will twinkle like a polished miniature bowling ball. Although under normal circumstances I welcome any allusion (in conversation or practice) to the squirting of juices with a knowing look and an apposite gesture, this does not necessarily apply to the squirting of lachrymal juices. In due course, I felt a firm object being pressed against my cornea, heard the word 'Scalpel' used on a few occasions and finally, felicitations were sung on a job presumably well done. Then half my head was wrapped in bandages and I was let free to bond with the wild and sing with the sparrows. And I thought I'd do so too if I reached home safely with one functioning eye and a pair of scratched glasses sticking precariously to my right ear.
And now, as I sit blogging in my room, I find it magical that even while I view the world with a jaundiced eye, my vision is imbued with a blurry white light (some would say it's divine, some would say it's the bandage above my eye). I shall leave you with a list of the precise thoughts that are running through my head:-
1. I should have been cast as the lead character in 'The Blind Side'.
2. (clutching a spear and speaking to myself): "Dilios, I trust that scratch hasn't made you useless." "Hardly my lord, it is just an eye. God saw fit to grace me with a spare." (tears shirt to reveal 6-packs!)
3. I should get an eye-patch. Noor already makes me sound like a Somalian pirate.
4. If I meet someone I don't know, I shall introduce myself as Harvey Dent.
5. Nothing. 5 just seemed like a good round number.
We-ell to be honest, to hold an innocuous stye in such deep contempt is perhaps a tad unfair. This was a creature of the genus 'Stye-icky-us', but with a twist. As my opthalmologist so eloquently put it, it was a 'stye-er mamatata bhai', known in finest literature as a chalazion. Notice my usage of the past tense. For today, I am officially rid of the vile tumour that has been obscuring my vision for the past three months. Today is also the day I had my first experience of surgery. It was a cheap surgery and to my dismay and considerable distress, I was not administered a solid dose of whatever anaesthetic that makes Liz Lemon lose her senses every time she visits the dentist. I was really looking forward to that. Well you can't have it all!
Did I say cheap surgery? I meant minor surgery. Although for all intents and purposes I might well have been tied up in some garage in Mexico with a blade-happy goon in green overalls who croons reassuring words into my ear like "Sorry. No hablo Ingles" or "Ooh what does this button do?". I'm sorry, but if I'm undergoing operation, I want to pay a whole lot more than a measly 1000 bucks. At least it will loom over the surgeon's head as a hefty reward he's foregoing by deciding to sell my retinas in the black market. But the opthalmologist (a make-shift surgeon as it turned out) was a nice and bouncy character. He looks the kind of person who handles all his daily affairs with the kind of aplomb you reserve for greeting your evil relatives after two healthy pegs of Jack Daniel's finest. Or maybe it was the moustache. I find short men with moustaches really easy to trust. In retrospect, they must have thought the same of Hitler.
If Paraffin is an anaesthetic, it should have kicked in before the injection was thrust into my eyelid. If it's a wax, it was probably applied to my eye to add a certain aesthetic quality. Maybe after the bandages are removed, it will twinkle like a polished miniature bowling ball. Although under normal circumstances I welcome any allusion (in conversation or practice) to the squirting of juices with a knowing look and an apposite gesture, this does not necessarily apply to the squirting of lachrymal juices. In due course, I felt a firm object being pressed against my cornea, heard the word 'Scalpel' used on a few occasions and finally, felicitations were sung on a job presumably well done. Then half my head was wrapped in bandages and I was let free to bond with the wild and sing with the sparrows. And I thought I'd do so too if I reached home safely with one functioning eye and a pair of scratched glasses sticking precariously to my right ear.
And now, as I sit blogging in my room, I find it magical that even while I view the world with a jaundiced eye, my vision is imbued with a blurry white light (some would say it's divine, some would say it's the bandage above my eye). I shall leave you with a list of the precise thoughts that are running through my head:-
1. I should have been cast as the lead character in 'The Blind Side'.
2. (clutching a spear and speaking to myself): "Dilios, I trust that scratch hasn't made you useless." "Hardly my lord, it is just an eye. God saw fit to grace me with a spare." (tears shirt to reveal 6-packs!)
3. I should get an eye-patch. Noor already makes me sound like a Somalian pirate.
4. If I meet someone I don't know, I shall introduce myself as Harvey Dent.
5. Nothing. 5 just seemed like a good round number.
2 comments:
I just realized your writing is very Mark Twain-esque
Again! Write more often.
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