The Exudation Explanation

"Why are you here?"

Not so much a fundamental examination of the nature of existence as a kindly question from the optician as he pointed what I can never think of as anything but his sonic screwdriver into my eyeball.

It was, in all fairness, a good question. My eyes aren't hurting, my vision's not deteriorating and my annual check-up wasn't due till November, but nevertheless I had wantonly booked an eye test this morning.
"Erm..." I said.
I mean the real answer was straightforward enough, but it's not really the kind of thing you say to a man with preturnaturally soft eyebrows as he looks deep into your eyes - "To stop my mother going on about it".

My mother, for those who don't know her personally, is an interesting woman. She has that way of saying things which brooks no real interpretation. There's a core of certainty she inherited in turn from her mother that makes her "suggestions" take on the look of Holy Writ. Such suggestions must be fought, of course, or one ends up being what around these parts is known as a "Mammy's Boy", and I have, over the years, and on a more or less weekly basis, rebuffed her "suggestions" about everything from the wearing of hats to my fundamental career choices.

Sometimes though, on the smaller things, it's worth just going along and shutting her down so that she doesn't have things to think about. In such a spirit, when she came out earlier this week with "you should get your eyes checked", it was easier just to book an appointment than it would have been to explain to her that my eyes were fine.

Besides - I'd had another line of logic enticingly laid before me by d. Recently, as people who actually give a toss about all this digital masturbation will remember, I went for my diabetic retinopathy scan, and was told that my left eye had significantly deteriorated since last year. But at the same time, by long-term blood control was excellent. The two things did not compute together, so d wondered whether it was something to do with the increase in screen-staring I've been doing over the last year, since setting up Jefferson Franklin. Had I, she wondered, over-stressed my eyes to some dangerous degree. So, what the hell, let's find out, I thought.

Rather than explain about the certainties of my mother, I laid the retinopathy results before the optician.
"Ahhh," he said, twekaing something on his screwdriver and peering into it himself for a moment.
"And of course," I said, conversationally, "since I saw you last I've had a severe hearing loss in my right ear," I explained. I seem to explain this to everyone at the moment at the drop of my hat. All in all, I'm not sure it's an attractive quality, this parading of my lughole, but anyway.
"Ahhh-AAAAh," he said, like Tom Baker discovering something very interesting indeed (get over it, you know I'm a geek!).
"...because of some ear infection," I finished.
"That'll be it," he said, switching on his screwdriver again  and pointing it at my left eye.
"Ahhhh yes, there you are," he said.
"What? Where?" I asked.
"Look left," he said.
I did.
"No...the other left," he explained.
"Oh...sorry..."
"Ahaaa..." he said almost again.
"Exudation," he said. "What you have here is some exudation."
"Oh...OK," I said. "Is that bad?"
"Hmm..." he considered. "No, shouldn't think so. I mean, it's on the macular area...which is exactly where we don't want it, but it's very fine and there's not much of it. If they were concerned about it at the hospital a few weeks ago, it was probably worse then. Probably coinciding with the Labyrinthitis, I shouldn't wonder. Probably had a bit of a flare-up. I reckon the body's already healing it. Should be fine by the time you go back to the hospital in a couple of months," he said.
"Oh," I said. "Oh!" I said as his words sunk in. "Oh, good!" We like that, really rather a lot."
"My pleasure," he said.
"So...what is exudation then?"
"Stuff that exudes," he said, breaking it down for me. "Eyeball blood plasma, basically. You've had a bit of an ooze, that's all."
"Oozy eyeballs," I said. "Greeeeeat."
"Yeah. As I say, probably all down to the ear infection thing."

So hopefully, I'll be dodging the laser in a couple of months, if I can only stop bloody oozing!

The rest of today has followed my recent pattern - walking early, biking mid-afternoon. Ceral breakfast, and as yet at 7.45, just fruit for the rest of the day. Dinner shortly, slotted in between another slab of editing work. Am making a rule tonight though - am stopping at 10 pm to share some time with d. And hopefully, if I can hit my next deadline, we might even share some hours together on Monday. That pretty much depends on me stopping talking to you lot right about now though, so adios for now. Enjoy, people, it's a long-ass weekend!