No Retinopathy... YET

I don't know why the damn eye specialist must do this to me every time. My worst nightmare is being rendered blind by the damn sugar. It does not stop me from hogging everything in my sight BUT still... it raises that uncomfortable "I should not..." in my mind.

So my routine 3-monthly-extended-to-6 eye check is something I dread. My doctor always begins with questioning me about how my sugar levels have been and I usually try to evade it by mumbling something and ending with a barely audible "mostly-decent". It is always a lie and I am surprised, no VERY VERY THANKFUL and NOT COMPLAINING-surprised that I am quite OK after 11 years of sugary highs and lows. I I usually spend the long minutes when the nurse puts those drops in my eyes praying to God to let me scrape by this time. Actually bribing is more like it. The things I have promised to Him could make me a flawless, super human if were to be kept. While He has kept his side of the bargain through the years, I have mostly not. The punishment for the is in the form of my eye-specialist.
The damn doc seems to take pleasure in my torment and very palpable fear of finding out I have done smth to my eye by eating too much. He examines my eyes at length and then sighs and ponders for so long I feel he should be one of those reality-show hosts that take 10 breaks and crack 20 stupid jokes before revealing the winner.

He invariably concludes my unbearable wait with the baap of all torture- by asking me if my parents are around. What is that supposed to mean? Why would your doctor, who has NEVER met your parents and who knows if your eyes have some irreparable damage in them ask you if your parents are around? WHY WOULD HE LOOK SO BLEAK AND GRAVE AND ASK ME WHERE MY PARENTS WERE? I always pray he is being his usual weird-self when I ask "Why? Is everything OK?". To this, he looks up with one raised eyebrow and says, "Why? Hasn't your sugar been in control?" and I start the mumbling routine again.

Then finally he takes a pen, scribbles my name and age, draws a weird wiggly line from under my name to the end of the page where he writes, almost in a disappointed scrawl the following blessed words: No diabetic retinopathy-followed by an ominous- YET. The 'yet' is a way of consoling himself maybe. Else why would he write YET.

My eye examine is tomorrow, btw. Yeah, I am not looking forward to it. Sigh!