I’m not a doctor but I have common sense

On the 2^nd of June, I posted an entry Stuck Between A Rock And A Hard Place. And it seems that every time these days when I visit my eye doctor or the visit is getting closer I end up to such a situation – being stuck between a rock and a hard place. This time, I feel in that way already before the actual visit, thanks to the phone call I got from the hospital unit this morning.

I was supposed to have an appointment with my eye doctor on Friday afternoon. But I got a call that he wouldn’t be there. I said I could very well come next week. But the secretary said the next time he’s there is on Monday the 29^th of this month.

As I had the last appointment on the 2^nd of June, by the time I was told I’d be sent the time of the next appointment by mail. That time, it was a random doctor who just did a regular check to me. And so it happened. I asked the secretary if it should be the cornea specialist himself whom I should meet – if he was so engaged another doctor might be fine too, as it’d be a regular check after all.

She said that the cornea specialist had wanted the appointment to be booked to him because it’d be time to plan the new cornea transfer. So, I should visit him and no other doctor.

“Excuse me?!,” I exclaimed on the phone.

As there have been a few issues with the current cornea, as I’ve posted earlier, the doctors have flashed an option of a new transfer a few times. The eye is calm and the sight is clear most of the time, but there’s a little bit of swelling in the cornea which is why a new transfer is one of the options according to the doctors. But because the issues aren’t really big or extremely serious I don’t have an urgent need to have a new transfer done.

To top it all, the specialist who wants to see me in one and a half weeks has told me personally just within the past half a year that because the eye has been operated for so many times during my life it might not put up with the healing process of another transfer, it being for 12 months after all. And now he’s willing to plan a new transfer anyway!

I don’t know which word would describe my mood the best at the moment. But I do feel frustrated. It is, of course, wonderful that I’m in such good hands and the doctors want to take care of me. But the whole situation is a true dead end.

If it’s 50% or even less that the eye would carry through the 12-month-long healing process without bringing up swelling or other issues to the cornea transplant and if the doctors have clearly told me that, my sense just doesn’t get it why they would like to go for a new transfer anyway especially when there isn’t an urgent need.

But the whole situation has two sides. My common sense says that a new transfer might just be another one-year-long project that might fail with the probability of 50%. I base it on what I’ve been told for many times. But after all, I’m not a doctor. I’m not professional in medicine. So, why I’m struggling so deep is that I’m stuck between my own common sense and the professional opinions and viewpoints of the doctors. And it puts me on a hell of a spot for sure.

So, now I have one and a half weeks to stop to think about the whole thing. I have time to prepare myself what I should ask of the doctor in the appointment on the 29^th. One thing is for sure though; I won’t let him off lightly when it comes to justifying why it’d be wise to go for a new transfer or what it perhaps might cause in a long term if it wasn’t done.

Typing vs. writing

This week, there have been a couple of meetings at work where I’ve had to take the notes by writing by pen. Especially after the second meeting where I had to write down a lot of notes, I started thinking of typing vs. writing.

When I was ten years old, beginning the fifth grade in primary school, my teacher said it’d be wise that I was taught to type on the computer. She based her opinion on the fact that I’m poor-sighted, so she said the skill could give me a lot of benefit in the future.

First I was excited about the idea, as already at that age I was excited to learn new things. But in practice, it meant that every Tuesday I had to spend an hour in the special needs teacher’s classroom. It was from one o’clock to two o’clock in the afternoon. And it was the only damn afternoon when the school ended at one o’clock. So, while the other students left for home I had to go to study typing. I’m grateful now that I had to. But by the time, as a kid, it really made me upset.

I can still remember how we started. The teacher told me that the fingers would be set on the keys in the way that the right forefinger would be on the F key and the left forefinger would be on the J key.

The first word I had to practice was Jaffa, which is the brand of a soda pop here: J with my left forefinger, A with my right little finger, the double F with my right forefinger, and A with my right little finger. Just after a couple of classes, I was totally thrilled. And after that, the teacher had to nearly kick me out of the classroom when it was two o’clock and the day ended for both of us.

My primary school teacher’s, who was my teacher from the first to the sixth grade, husband was blind. So, she really thought about my future considering my sight. Kids can’t really respect such things especially in a long term. But while getting older, I’ve come to respect it highly and deeply. I was blessed to have such a teacher. I couldn’t have had a better one.

Already for a long time, I’ve typed as fast as I speak. And I use all of my ten fingers when I type. I make very few errors while I type. And every time I make an error my left little finger automatically finds its way on the Back key to erase what I’ve typed wrong, and then I retype what I was supposed to type.

Even my mother, who worked as a word processor for many years before she became a secretary in the governmental institute she’s working for, has said that I type faster than her even if she’s been typing for many more years at work than me in general.

When I was in high school, I had a laptop in use in the courses. All the students in the classes were envious because I typed as fast as the teachers were speaking. So, needless to say, I had the best notes. The same happened in all the language course I took in Helsinki Adult College as well as when I studied for the business degree. I’ve also made benefit of the typing skill in my career. For example, when I was working as a poll interview and a sales representative, it was easy to type people’s opinions, the deals’ conditions, and all such things while the customers spoke. I never had to make lists with a few words only. I typed whole sentences and I was always praised by my bosses because of the skill of doing that.

But typing has caused one bad thing. My handwriting is really poor these days – it’s been poor already for many years. The simple reason is that every time I can choose I don’t even consider a second if I’d type or write. I type. I even type the shopping lists and print them instead of writing them down on a piece of paper.

I do feel quite ashamed to show what my handwriting is like if I’m honest. Even if there are lines on the paper I can’t really even stay inside them. Sometimes I keep joking that I should go back to the primary school and take a course of handwriting again.

The type of handwriting I really envy is my mother’s. It’s so clear but at the same time very pretty. Well, instead of the primary school course, I could ask if she agreed to give me a class or two. In that way, I’d get a very pretty handwriting.