lessons learned

It's a Crazy, Crazy World

In fact, the crazier the story, the more likely it is to be true.

JACK RUNNINGER, O.D.

Among the legends of crazy happenings is the one about the firefighters who rescued a cat from a tree. The cat's owner was very appreciative — until they "undid" their good deed by running over the cat as they backed out of the driveway.

You may recall that last month, we discussed some of the unexpected or crazy things that happen in optometric offices. Continuing this theme:

► A patient told Dr. Doran Deapen, Killeen, Texas, after preliminary testing, "That lady in there just showed me a picture she took of my rectum. I ain't never seen that before!"

► "I don't want those progressive lenses this time," a patient told Dr. Mike Silverman, Coral Springs, Fla. "The reason is that whenever I tilt my head back to drink my beer while I'm driving, I can't see the road clearly through the bottom part of the lens."

Pain in the eye

► "I used to have this terrible stabbing pain in my eye whenever I drank coffee," a wiseacre patient once told me. "I consulted a few eye doctors about it, but they couldn't find the cause. Then I discovered it didn't happen if I took the spoon out of the cup before taking the first sip."

► "I asked a 45-year-old presbyopic patient if he had switched over to progressives yet," reported Dr. William Freitas, Woonsocket, R.I. "His response was that no, he was still with GEICO."

Different prescription?

► "I had a patient who told me he couldn't wear the glasses I'd prescribed," e-mailed Dr. By Newman, San Diego, Cal. "Later he came back with an Rx from a physician. He told me the physician had showed him how much better he could see with it than with the lenses I had prescribed, and wanted me to remake his glasses with that prescription.

"When we checked, the new Rx was exactly the same as the one I had prescribed." Another example:

► "I used to compete with birddogs," a patient told Dr. Jim Schmit, Muncy, Pa. "We ran them with bells on, which are hard to locate directionally if either or both ears are deficient. One of the participants told us that he had purchased great new hearing aids, and he could now hear fine where the dogs were located. When one of the guys asked him, ‘What kind is it?’ he replied, ‘About 10 o'clock.’"

She followed instructions

Some of the crazy things you read about, that you think impossible to have happened, really do occur. For example:

► In a column for my local newspaper, I once wrote about a legend that I knew couldn't have happened. It was about the man with a dead battery, who asked his wife to give him a push.

"Since I have an automatic transmission, you're going to have to get up to 35 miles an hour to get me started," he told her. Then he got in his car and a few minutes later was horrified to see in his rear view mirror, his wife approaching at the 35 miles per hour."

"I'm too embarrassed to tell you who I am," said a lady who phoned me the next day. "But I did exactly what the lady in your story did! In addition to incurring large repair bills on both vehicles, I broke both arms!" OM