Life is beautiful and sometimes it can also be a nice change. And mischievous too! He tells fate: “Look, she’s going to the doctor, so make it as difficult as possible for her, let’s have some fun!” And fate mischievously accommodates life and with smug hand-wringing in anticipation of exuberant merriment puts an eye doctor’s office in my way.
That’s how it was – I’m severely hard of hearing, I have a congenital hearing defect and it goes down rapidly until one day there is complete silence. I just can’t hear yet. I don’t wear a hearing aid, even though I’ve had a lot of them – for personal reasons, for reasons of certain discomfort, something that only a hard of hearing person can understand.
In addition, in a little while the “volume will be left” and it will be over, so even rinsing my ears with Lourdes water (grandmother) won’t help me, let alone a new hearing aid. I’d rather warn everyone in advance that I’m hard of hearing. Those who want to yell at me, those who don’t don’t have to. Those who know me roar. About that some other time.
Even before covid something monstrous suddenly started happening to my eye. Since I protect this paired organ “like an eye in the head” so that it can more boldly compete with the departing ears (it’s true, with the loss of one sense, the other senses really become sharper!), I went to the ophthalmologist. After a telephone consultation with the nurse, who, according to the voice of an elderly lady (I have a strong microphone, I can hear everything on the phone – so far!), I was told that I probably have a barley grain.
Well, by grain – it was a lump like a cow, a finished overhang that hurt like the said cow. However, the health lady did not book me until next month (we don’t, we don’t, I can’t help it, they aren’t!, as Mr. Smoljak would say in Jáchym…), because there was no free appointment. With the fact that it will subside by then, but I’m sure the doctor will look into it and recommend something. So yeah. I walked around with an ornament on my lid for about a week, before it was the size of a regional city, and finally, one fine day, it made a “bang!”.
I looked like a human again (well…), but I still went to eye surgery in case it happened again. (Repeatedly!). I entered the waiting room where I was alone. Then the door to the doctor’s office opened, the nurse’s blue-white back, a wave of hands, and suddenly the nurse, of whom I had only seen a dim silhouette so far, bumped her shoulder into the fur coat. And twice. Just at that time, the epidemic of drunken doctors was at its peak – would a nurse be drunk as well? But I went on.
Behind the doctor’s table sat a smiling doctor in a medical gown. Hey, I lost it. He was so handsome. Handsome and smiling doctor, I don’t know his age because I can’t estimate his age. Young. And he laughs! And he really does have a round head that looks like a CD! Well, I stood there like a calf staring at him just like the said calf. A dumb calf!
“Then sit down,” came from behind me as I jumped, “are you the deaf lady?” screamed the person. “Yes, it’s me, but we’ll get it together somehow, don’t worry,” I turned with a smile to the source of the woman’s squeal, but my smile literally froze when I saw the surreal scene. Jesus Christ, I crossed myself mentally. (“Haaaah, it’s about to start, come watch, dear, I made some popcorn and it’s 12 o’clock!” fate called.)
The nurse was an elderly lady, which I recognized only by her gray, wild hair, reminiscent of a faded dandelion. The rest of the lady’s face was bombarded. She had a mask on, which in the pre-Covid era looked really weird, a cast on her nose (or a splint, I don’t know!), and a bandana around her head. She had huge black wasp-type glasses on her eyes, which she took off. Panda was a decently made-up creature against her.
For the first time, I saw with my own eyes the kind of monocles that are made for a broken nose. I knew it was done, that blood pooled around the eyes, but to see it! Poor lady. And I was so sorry she saw me jump in terror! But she didn’t take it that way, luckily.
“What is that,” she pointed her hand to her face. “The worst thing is that I can’t see anything at all when I have it cloudy…” she screamed. She didn’t forget that, a really good nurse!
“How did it happen to you?” I breathed out because it was terrible. Black, completely black circles around the eyes, swollen eyelids, the pupils could hardly be seen, as it was swollen – I would expect this somewhere in a field hospital, not in an eye clinic! Where everyone is supposed to be advertising eye health! (Please, that’s nothing against the nurse, that’s just a statement!)
I was expecting some story about how she fell on the doorknob, or that she hit the door in the dark, those kinds of excuses that tend to cover up the fact that a woman is being beaten by her husband. “Well, don’t even ask, here in the doctor’s office. I was wiping, it ran down my legs and directly on my nose…” she screamed. I looked at the doctor because the wet floor excuse is also a familiar one, but this was probably a different situation. He was sitting and smiling.
Crash, boom, came from the nurse. A pithy curse followed, a juicy curse, she dropped a couple of files from the table and howled: “I just can’t see anything at all!!”
Blind nurse at eye clinic. Good, well. Deaf patient. But the doctor was still here! Of course! That’s why I’m here, oh, I forgot my grain. And I thought to myself – yes, my golden grain, because at that time I could see at least in one eye, here the poor lady can’t see anything…
“Then why aren’t you at home, you can’t see anything like this,” I dared to ask my sister.
“Because I have to watch over him!”Mrs. Panda shouted in frustration, pointing at the doctor.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…” muttered MUDr and shook his head.
“Well, I have to,” she waved her hand, dropping the pen pixel.
A thought flashed through my head so crazy that I pushed it away for a while, but it came up again and knocked inside my brain. It’s… Maybe not. I’m not normally shy to talk to anyone, but now I was wondering if I should ask. But yeah.
“Doesn’t the doctor see, too?” it came out of me very, very reluctantly. (“Good popcorn, dear, see? Look how he’s staring! He needs one more beer, it’ll be a vejvar, look!” fate laughed).
A blind eye doctor? As I have seen a lot in my life, but this was a slightly different coffee. Maybe I’m still asleep! That will be it! Holy Mary, I have dreams, I’m looking forward to waking up! I didn’t wake up, but I was even more upset because the nurse spilled water on the table, cursed and screamed: “He doesn’t speak!”
How, he doesn’t speak? Is he mute? Did the doe raise him? My mind flashed to Long Bidlo, who was begging on the street with a sign around his neck: “I am mute. Show. From birth.” “And you’ve had that since you were born?” fell out of me
“No,” sister put on those huge wasp glasses again, “he was at one of their concerts and he was tearing out his vocal cords,” she roared. (Unbelievably, even during this completely absurd conversation, she KNEW all the time that she had to yell at me!). And at that moment, the thing happened when the doctor was among us, but he became a piece of furniture. Since he couldn’t say anything, we started talking about him without him. That happens sometimes. But he stopped enjoying it (I’m not surprised) and started drawing attention to himself with various gestures.
Once again, Tóma Hluchonemec from The Secret of the Castle in the Carpathians came to mind (My imagination will bring me to the police station one day, I know it!). And there was a conversation that to this day, when I think about it all, causes me to have a fit of laughter – mostly at funerals, funerals or condolence, but you know it – at the worst times. It was like this:
Dumb: “Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiizd…heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…”
Deaf: “Hello doctor, I think I had a grain of barley, I would like to ask if there is any prevention, or if it appears, what…”
Blind: “Třísk – please, I can’t see it, you can check which card is yours, I already registered you on the phone, but… bang! Hell of a job (obscene words, lots of obscene words, cacophony of obscene words!!!), I’m GOING HOME!!!!”
Dumb: (handing me a piece of paper)“==%´/-+.,.\§§!???,,úúú//*+000;;;;;;;;;;; ===-.ů.ů§p§, l§§§§…(/%%.,,,??_”
Deaf: “Eeeeh…I’m sorry, but I won’t read it…” (Is that K??? That’s disgust and not K!!!)
Dumb: “Hrhr…hrr…hrhrrrrrrr…ttrrrrrrrrrrr…” he was pulling out syllables and sounds, holding his neck and looking focused. “Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu..” Throat singing from Tuva?
Blind: (something, I don’t know what, quietly)
Deaf: “Pardon?” (I say instead of please? or what? because it seems more polite to me), “I didn’t hear you now,”. I automatically covered my earlobes with my hands, so now I looked like Tom the Deaf German. Mute burst out laughing at the sight of me. For now, the laughter was sitting low in my diaphragm, but there was a real danger that it would erupt when it came out. It cannot be stopped.
Blind: “I CAN’T SEE ANYTHING AT ALL!!!”
Dumb: “Huíííííííííííi… Hůůůůůůůůů… heee..heeeee…”
Deaf: “It’s…heheche..ééééh…na na na…..éééh…the barley pffffffffffffffff…” I burst out laughing. (“dude, life, that was a really, really good idea!” he reveled in fate and poured life into himself.)
Dumb: “Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff…uh uh uh uh uh …” It sounded like Forrest Gump having his first sexual experience.
Blind: “Is this blue or green?” she held up her markers against the light.
Deaf: “I’m serious, boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo (tears of laughter) I don’t know what to do, sorry, uhuhuhuhuhuuuuu…” I stuffed a tissue in my mouth because it couldn’t be stopped.
Blind: “He has to lick at their Manickov concerts, yell there and then he wants to prescribe…if I hadn’t broken my mouth, it would have been possible, but this? And this is red?’ she stuck the marker right in my face, stabbing me at the root cause of my obscure visit here.
Deaf: “Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
(“That’s even better than I expected, what do you think dude?” carved fate into life)
Dumb: (horrified – probably) “uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch
Blind: “So, is that okay?” screamed “jeez, good, it’s above the eyelid, doctor, get a cold one. I’m SORRY, ” she tried to focus, but in vain.
Deaf: “I’ll go, I’ve got to go…” (Hurry up, poor thing, I love you!) I didn’t want to have my eye gouged out by a dumb eye doctor and a blind nurse. Being deaf is more than enough for now!
I got up, shook the doctor’s hand, he said: “U Í UAAA…”as Aťka Janoušková sang it, I shook my hand at the nurse on the third try (missed) and swept out of the doctor’s office. “One more card,” she was yelling behind me, but for the first time I abused the (dis)advantages of my handicap and PRETENDED I COULDN’T HEAR HER. On the other hand, I heard one big “Prááásk”, with which she apparently definitely beat the table. Or a doctor. Or I don’t know. As I giggled, it occurred to me that she was really very casual with him – of course, they were related.
I would guess a grandson, a recent graduate, or a son, a recent graduate. By the time I got the black eye on my other eye, it was already healed and there was no denying their appearance. And when I looked closely at the doctor, I realized that I knew him. Once upon a time, when the Kabáts were here at the summer cinema, this then grown-up climbed behind Vojtek on the stage, crouched there half-naked, stole his microphone and had to be carried out.
As you can see, neither studying nor taking over an established practice has deterred him from steaming – and that’s a good thing. Just watch out for the vocal cords. But let it be said that I have never experienced a better examination – and that I have experienced them! By the way, as I write this now, I can feel something starting to happen on my eyelid. Such tension!
(“Hey, honey… pop her one big bean, so we’ll have something to laugh about again, okay?”)
So thank you, fate! And everyone have a nice day!
