Miami Nights

Now, we all know that good vision is important for an artist such as myself, because blind people never do anything important.  Take Helen Keller for example.  I saw her movie.  All she did was stumble into walls and throw tantrums while Anne Bancroft tried to teach her sign language. Then at the end while drawing shigella-tainted water from a well, she moans out "WAH WAH!" and everyone is amazed.  As it turns out, Ms. Keller eventually went on to graduate from Radcliffe (Harvard's vaginas-only institution back when), which only shows that it requires 60% of your five senses to get a degree from an Ivy League school. Another example is Claude Monet. Have you seen his work?  It's all blurry and shit. I can't tell if those are waterlilies or crumpled up, used condoms discarded in the stolid water of a street gutter.  This guy will never make it in the art world. Not only does he suffer from cataracts, but also from the most egregious and debilitating of handicaps: being French.

Anyway, back to my harrowing story.  As I sped down I-95 to land of crackheads and bail bondsmen I was hopeful that the good doctors at Bascom Palmer would lovingly cure the searing pain in my eye, like in all those commercials where children play with puppies in a field of daisies while parents look on approvingly and elderly people smile in a non-senile manner.  After finding a miraculous parking place, I staggered into the lobby and was greeted by three thugged out security guards who were watching some chop-saki movie on their console rather than making sure no homeless derelicts were stealing the unsecured lawn furniture in the atrium.  They gave me enough attention to point me in the direction of what was the emergency room at 4am.  A semi-pleasant robovoice announced the end of my journey, "FIFTH FLOOR", as the elevator doors opened into... an empty lobby with one nurse.  This was the "emergency" room.  Maybe it was a slow night for eye trauma.

I approached the vestibule, behind which was a short, plump lady who asked me what my problem was.  After explaining my situation, she mocked me and asked why I needed to come to the emergency room.  I guess being unable to sleep for two days and missing work because it felt like someone was using my eye socket to cast iron ingots isn't a good enough reason.  I was then presented with a stack of paperwork to read and fill out.  Since reading and writing are enhanced by visual impairment, this only took me six times longer than it normally would have.  They have forms for everything: forms against being sued, forms for being sued, forms that allow them to sue you and/or your next of kin.  They've got all the bases covered.  After the useless paperwork, I sat back down and waited while tears were quietly oozing out of my eye-wound.  About 20 minutes later, a nurse arrived to take me to the exam room and do a bunch of meaningless things that only cost me and my insurance company about $600. There was an eye exam, lots of dripping of eye drops, weird devices and pokey things to check my eye pressure.  Most of this preparation was done deliberately and unceremoniously as the nurse kept fumbling around in all the disorganized drawers and cabinets looking for the appropriate items.  After all the preliminary exams were done, I was led back out to the lobby to wait for my eyes to dilate and for the doctor to come.

Fortunately (and the highlight of this adventure) they applied anesthetic drops which made the pain go away. At this point it was about 5:30am and I was dead tired.  I almost fell asleep, which was basically all I wanted at that point.  One good thing about Bascom Palmer is that they make no pretenses about being a top-notch facility.  Being the first and last person in line for "emergency" treatment it still took an hour and a half to see the doctor after my initial exam was done.  And this is the best part.  Some svelte Indian (dot, not feather) lady darts around the corner and barks my name, disappearing almost as quickly as she appeared.  So it was up to me to figure out which of the 20 rooms she was in along that particular hallway.  Being half-blind and unable to focus my vision made this quite fun.  Once in the exam room she asked me only two questions before attaching equipment to me to inspect my eyeholes, most of which involved bright lights directed into my fully dilated pupils.  Oh, whether or not my injury made me sensitive to light (yes, it did) was not one of the questions she asked.  The exam concluded with her swabbing my eyes for bacteria cultures, shining more lights in them and writing me a prescription for antibiotic drops.  She was very gruff and cold and despite my insistence the pain was intolerable at times she only suggested I take Motrin.  Disheartened, I went back to the lobby to fill out and sign my discharge papers only to learn they don't make appointments for follow-ups.  They're done on a first-come-first-served basis starting at 8am.  Needless to say I didn't go back for a follow-up the next day.

I've been away from Miami for a while, and I know there's a "right" way to do things and the "Miami" way to do things.  We all know the "right" way is always the wrong way and the "Miami" way to handle this would have been to first call a santera friend and have her invoke the spirit of the Patron Saint of Eye Problems for you and second, to call your street pharmacist to score some vicodin (penecillin optional).  Between Santa Barbara (aka Changó) and Lady V (as I like to call the vikes) my eye worries would have been cured without a hitch and for a fraction of the cost.