FRIDAY WAS INTERESTING

 This past Friday was interesting.  I had a three o'clock appointment with my Ophthalmologist, Dr. Grilo.  Google says Grilo is Portuguese.  

He told me about what he could do for me vision wise.  Did I want to wear glasses? Uh, yeah, I have worn them so long that I would feel naked.  And there is no need whatsoever of inflicting the face upon the public.

Apparently the lenses that get inserted after the cataract removal can be fashioned to give you a very good degree of acuity.  My left eye is now 20/400 which is legally blind.  My right eye corrected to about 20/40.  

He said he would leave vision so that I could read at arm length.

I then asked him when he graduated from medical school.  He said 2008.  So I gave him a little history.

Way back in the mid 70's when I was a displaced housewife.  I took the standard put peg in hole test at the local employment office.  The lady Social worker informed me that I tested out to be compatible with OSHA inspector, Nuclear laboratory technician and Medical Records.  

At that time people were shooting at OSHA inspectors in Idaho.  I didn't want to live in Twin Falls in order to work at the nuclear labs.  Um, what is Medical records?

So I enrolled at Boise State University in the two year Associate of Science degree for the Medical Records program.

While pulling a full load, I also worked full time at St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center.  One day a woman came in for a cornea transplant.  Everything went very well.

A few weeks later, she came in with an advanced case of Rabies.  They could no do anything for other than palliative care.  She died.  The doctors was dumbfounded.  The woman had not been exposed to any of the animal vectors.

They decided to take a look at the donor of her corneas.  It was a man who had worked in eastern Oregon, a park ranger, I think.  He had died of rabies.

It was that moment that the medical profession recognized that the rabies virus could be transmitted in the corneas.  Now all corneas are tested for a variety of diseases as well as Covid 19.

Dr. Grilo told me some recent history.  A patient received cornea transplants.  In a few months the patient had developed malignant melanoma.  As a routine check the donor of the corneas was traced to a person who had died of malignant melanoma.  It was at that moment the medical community discovered that cancer cells could be transmitted in the cornea.  

Be careful out there.