It's a Piece of Cake- Personal, just for fun

It’s A Piece of Cake

By R. Garry Shirts

I sent an e-mail to my poker playing friends informing them that I would not be able to host the poker game on the agreed upon day because I was having eye surgery. My first draft of the e-mail said cataract surgery but I rejected that because it sounds so routine.. Eye surgery sounds so much more impressive.

I also didn’t want to mention cataract surgery because I knew their response would be like everyone else I’ve told. Those who have already had the operation say, “Don’t worry about it, it’s a piece of cake. You’ll be glad you did it.” Now why does that response irritate me? A doctor’s going to take a knife and cut into my eye, then he’s going to take a pair of pliers , grab the center of my eye and pull it out. Then replace it with a piece of plastic that may or may not fit. That’s a piece of cake?

If that’s a piece of cake? Why did I have to have a preop physical that included an ekg? There’s only one conclusion, they’re worried my heart’s going to be so stressed I’ll have a heart attack and die on the operating table?

If it’s a piece of cake. Why did I have to sign a four page list of things acknowledging that I knew what could go wrong, “the patient understands that even though this is a safe procedure, on rare occasions an infection might set in and he’ll be blind for the rest of the patient’s life. “ That’s a piece of cake?.

I didn’t read all four pages, but I’m sure it says in there somewhere that the doctor might slip and poke my eye out. “Oops, I’m terribly sorry. The nurse bumped my elbow, there goes your eye.”

And then there’s the other statement people make, “You’ll be glad you did it.” I think I may have some of my middle son in me. I remember telling him to ”have a nice day” as he left for junior high school and he replied, “Don’t tell me what to do.”.

Well don’t tell me I’m going to love it until you understand the background of this eye surgery. First, I don’t need the surgery. I can read most books and magazines without glasses. All I have to do is hold the book up close to my eyes. How can anyone with vision that good need surgery? At a distance, I can see perfectly fine with glasses. When I’m driving, I can recognize a car coming at me or one that I’m approaching in plenty of time to take evasive action. I don’t need to be able to read the highway signs because most of the time I know where I’m going. I don’t need to be able to see small animals because they know how to get out of the way of an approaching car. If people knew how well I can see, they wouldn’t be saying, “You’ll be glad you did it,”

People who haven’t had the surgery try to say something encouraging, but I know what they’re thinking. They’re thinking, “he’s getting old. Next his hearing will go, then his knees, and the next time we see him he’ll be wandering around Ralph’s in a walker looking for boxes of Depends.”

Although I’m chronologically old I don’t feel old. If someone came up to me on the street and said, “Quick, how old are you?’ And I didn’t have time to think, I would probably say, “I’m 40, 45 max.”

Even though I don’t need this surgery, I’m going to go through with it because I’ve been worried about going blind ever since I was a 12 year old kid. That’s when my mother happened to see me in the shower doing more than getting wet. “You keep doing that Garry Shirts and you’ll go blind” she warned. It s taken a little longer than I thought, but it’s finally happening.