The ophthalmology technician was pleasant, respectful, and competent as she walked with Dad toward the examination room, chatting along the way.  Mom commented to her how cute her name was: Lexi.  Lexi laughed and explained freely that before she was born, her infant brother Alex had passed away.  When she was born, her still-heartbroken parents named her Lexi, in memory of Alex.  I wondered silently if it were a good thing for a girl to be named after her deceased brother.  But she felt honored by her name and proud of how she came by it.  Lexi invited Dad to sit in a chair and put his chin on the machine.  “I hate that machine,” Dad protested, but Lexi reassured him, “We’ll get through it together.”  She administered numbing and dilating drops, and instructed him on the procedure.  “Blink…Hold open…Good.  Blink…Hold…Good.”  She held a gentle hand on the back of his head to support the position his arthritic neck resisted.  With the pressure test and glaucoma examination over, Lexi congratulated him: “See?  You got this!”  “That wasn’t bad at all,” he agreed.  “It’s the other machine I hate.”  Lexi promised Dad he would not have to do the peripheral field-of-vision test with all the blinking lights and needing to push the button with every light and not being sure if that was a light and whether he should press the button because he wasn’t sure and not being able to move fast enough and feeling anxious and frustrated.  “We won’t make you do that one again for a while.  Your eyes look great.  No damage from diabetes.  Keep up the good work.  And your new lenses have grafted nicely.  You’re seeing 20/20!”

(Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay.)