I had my annual eye screening today. If you want to get an idea of how I was feeling in the lead up, you can read this, or this, or this. Because it’s always the same.

The orthoptist called me from the waiting room, and as I followed her in, she said ‘We’ve been seeing you for eighteen years now.’

‘That’s right,’I said. ‘Obviously, we were both twelve years old when I first started coming here.’

She laughed and agreed with that assessment.

‘You know there’s a reason for that, right?’I asked her. ‘You and Prof Ophthalmologist know how I feel about my eye screening. And you have always been so kind and lovely about it. I have never been made to feel foolish. If I have been late with a screening check – as I often was back in those early years – I never felt shamed or told off. You have always been kind to me. Kindness in care is so underestimated.’

We chatted some more about that and then she did the usual checks and delivered the news as she always does. Diabetes-wise everything was exactly as it was last time I was there, and I let out half a sigh of relief. I still had to see the ophthalmologist, so the other half would have to wait a little more.

Finished with me, she escorted me to the second waiting room where I kept myself occupied trying to read things as my vision blurred more and more, and convincing myself that I was not having some sort of heart event, despite my racing heartbeat.

The rest of my visit was as unadventurous as the beginning of it. My ophthalmologist was his usual self – he made some cheeky comments about my aversion to seeing him, asked me how I was, commended me on living with diabetes for 21 years, and then looked at my eyes. After announcing them to be ‘pristine’ (I asked if that as a technical term and he said in this instance, yes), we spoke a bit about how flying seemed to flare up the blepharitis I had been recently diagnosed with. (That’s all for another blog post, but basically, it’s inflammation of the eye lids.) I noted down how to best manage those flares and what I needed to watch for in the future. My heartrate had returned to normal and I was breathing easily again.

As I put on my coat, I mentioned the eighteen years I’ve been attending his clinic. ‘I really don’t like the fact that I have to come and see you. I don’t look forward to it – in fact I pretty much dread it,’ I said. I watched him smile and shake his head slightly. He is more than used to my melodramatic tendencies.

‘But I am eternally grateful for how generous you and your staff have always been. I love that I have never felt anything other than safe here, and that says a lot when the thought of someone so much as looking at my eye makes me want to cry. The fact that you touch my eyeball to check the pressure of my eye – or whatever you do – is just beyond terrifying. But I would never think to miss an eye screening now – never. I know when it is due, and I am completely dialled in to it all. A lot of that has to do with knowing how this whole experience will play out.’

I picked up my bag and he handed me some samples to help my eyes when I am stuck on aeroplanes for days on end. ‘I’ll see you in a year, He said.‘But earlier, of course, if you have any concerns or notice any changes. You are really doing an incredible job living with diabetes, Renza.’

I thanked him and before I walked out the door said, ‘I don’t really have a choice. I live with diabetes. I don’t really have any other choice than to make the best of it. But having kind healthcare professionals like you around makes it infinitely easier. I really hope you know that you make it easy for me to show up.’

Instagram stories keeping me occupied in the second waiting room.