I'm Retired! Now what?

June 15, 2026

Half way through my third month of retirement I was met with a normal retirement thing which turns out to be another doctor’s appointment.  This little medical visit was my yearly hook up with my eye doctor.  Not the optometrist mind you but the more serious ophthalmologist.

I started going to the ophthalmologist a few years ago after I woke up one morning and had a floater drifting across my right eye that looked like the hologram of a fried egg.  For some strange reason I had managed to rip a decent sized horseshoe tear in my eyeball that required laser surgery.  Although I’ve had worse experiences in my life, having your eyeball zapped with a surgical laser 2,000 times isn’t really something you want to hold dearly as a regular activity.  I basically sat there for an hour while some dude pretty much spot welded my eye back together with a laser.  And trust me, that was about as much fun as it sounds.  That little experience gave me a heck of a headache.

Feeling like I had just played 18 holes of golf while using my face as my seven iron, I asked my eye welding ophthalmologist what I kind of malevolent deed I had carried out in order to put myself through such a catastrophic experience.  Being a nice guy, he threw out the patient friendly explanation of, “Well, when you start getting a lot a candles on your birthday cake….”  Yea, that’s just a nice way of saying, “When you’re as old as dirt, all parts of your body start going to hell!  Just be thankful you’re still alive!”

Following this little sclera adventure, I had so many tiny floaters drifting in and out of my eyesight I nearly thought that I was under constant attack from a horde of insects.  However, as the weeks went on, I seemed to become used to the little shadowy specs, and now I rarely even notice them.  I guess the plague of retina locus kind of faded into my sight’s background.  However, that didn’t mean I was going to ignore my vision health, and I quickly added the ophthalmologist appointment to my yearly medical schedule.  In short, it was just another doctor visit to add to my hypochondria obsession.

Since both of my parents had glaucoma, I make these little trip the ophthalmologist with religious diligence.  And regardless of the massive number of candles on my birthday cake, I have to wonder what my 37-year career of working nights had done to my eyesight.  With my career choices added to my constant fear of all things medically bad, I’m constantly weighted down with the question of just how many years of sight I might have left.

Like all my doctor visits, I sat in the eye doctor’s waiting room studying all my fellow patients while wondering if I’m the only one present who doesn’t remember the Truman administration.  Even though I may be one of the younger ones gathered, I’m probably the most medically paranoid.

Since becoming a regular at the ophthalmologist clinic I’ve had so many different doctors I’ve taken to calling them simply, Dr. Eye.  With the multitude of new eye docs I’m usually met with a new fresh face regarding their assistants as well.  I’m not sure what their official title is, but these are the delightful souls who fill my eyes with numbing drops and force me to stare at the bright light.  While some pretty brunet was telling me to focus on the blue light, I began to consider what kind of activities I could still do if I did go blind.  Such might get me out of yard work.  However, I have to imagine that my little writing hobby would certainly become a challenge, but I figured I could still pick around on my guitars.

As the young lady measured the pressure on my eyes, I started thinking of all the blind folks of the music world.  There’s been Ronnie Milsap, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Jeff Healy, José Feliciano and opera singer Andrea Bocelli.  Strangely enough, I just discovered that bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson was actually blind.  I had always figured that was just some bluesy stage name.  After all, Hound dog Taylor wasn’t a hound dog and Howling Wolf wasn’t a wolf.  Regardless of what great blues singers came to mind, I sat in the examining chair dreading what terrible news awaited me regarding my visual future.  Indeed, I had a vast number of questions to ask which ever Dr. Eye I was seeing for the day.  That was, of course, if I was ever to see him for the day.

After hanging out in the waiting room for another thirty minutes, I was grabbed by another assistant who dilated my eyes to the point where I was truly feeling blind.  However, I had enough vision left to see the photos they had taken of my eyeballs, and to be honest, I thought they looked suitable for framing.  As I oohed and aahed a bit over the fascination of the human eye, my Dr. Eye for the day came strolling into the room.  I don’t know how much prestige ophthalmology holds in the medical world, but it must be the trendy practice for the young hip doctors to take on.  This is due to the fact that every time I come to the eye clinic the doctors seem to be getting younger and younger.  The optometrist I see every year or so is actually older than me, and we tend to bond with tales of grandkids and retirement plans.  As for my ophthalmologist though, I wouldn’t be surprised if they started showing up for my exams with pacifiers in their mouth.  Yes, they look that young, but of course youth does hold advantages in the medical field.  Being a young, hip doctor generally means that med school is still fresh in their brains, and they’re all in tune with all the new, cool modern technology.  In other words, they won’t be attaching leeches to me in order to get rid of my floaters

As Dr. Eye junior checked my eyes out he dictated a bunch of figures to his assistant who entered them all into her computer with impressive diligence.  While sitting in the waiting room for over an hour my mind had filled up with all kinds of pressing matters to toss out to Dr. Eye.  Matters concerning my dry eyes, tired eyes, weak eyes, sore eye, cataracts, glaucoma, red eye, pink eye, yellow eye, private eye….and on and on.  I tried to ask questions and voice my concerns with the same speed and diligence that Dr. Eye was rattling off figures to his assistant.  I’m guessing we sounded a bit like a couple of machine guns in heated battle!

To sum things up, Dr. Eye told me that my eyes were fine, and if I had any concerns regarding the two dozen eye ailments I had rattled off to him, I should simply use a few eyedrops.   I realize that these medical professionals only have an allotted number of minutes for each patient, but I always feel like I’m being a bit slighted.  I swear one of these days I’m going to enter the place and asked the receptionist at the front desk where I can put my seeing eye dog during the appointment.  Maybe I’ll get a little more time.