HEADING POSTERO-MEDIALLY IN THE DIRECTION OF THE CHIASM

Popped out of the house this morning for my eye doctor appointment, and got there forty five minutes early. It's an airconditioned building. This is relevant. Eye pressure checked, vision checked, cataract checked. Everything as fine as can be expected. The pressure in the left orb has stabilized at a safe level, thanks to Latanoprost. My optic nerves are bigger than normal.  And I might need cataract surgery in several years.

From Wikipedia: "Cataracts are most commonly due to aging but may also occur due to trauma or radiation exposure ... "

Must have been the radioactive gorilla in the lab.

I think that what she may have meant when she referred to the optic nerve was the retinas. Big ass retinas. BRE. Big Retinal Energy. They're big. BIIIG. I never really though about it before, now I can't get it out of my head.

Sexiest text on Wikipedia: "The optic nerve -- is composed of retinal ganglion cell axons and glial cells; it extends from the optic disc to the optic chiasma and continues as the optic tract to the lateral geniculate nucleus, pretectal nuclei, and superior colliculus."

[Also from that same Wikipedia article: "The optic nerve is composed of retinal ganglion cell axons and glia. Each human optic nerve contains between 770,000 and 1.7 million nerve fibers, which are axons of the retinal ganglion cells of one retina. In the fovea, which has high acuity, these ganglion cells connect to as few as 5 photoreceptor cells; in other areas of retina, they connect to many thousand photoreceptors. -- The optic nerve leaves the orbit (eye socket) via the optic canal, running postero-medially towards the optic chiasm, where there is a partial decussation (crossing) of fibers from the temporal visual fields (the nasal hemi-retina) of both eyes. The proportion of decussating fibers varies between species, and is correlated with the degree of binocular vision enjoyed by a species. Most of the axons of the optic nerve terminate in the lateral geniculate nucleus from where information is relayed to the visual cortex, while other axons terminate in the pretectal area ... "]

And now I know what Fundus Photography is.
眼底 ('ngaan dai'): Interior rear of the eye.
眼底张照 ('ngaan dai jeung jiu').
眼底照片 ('ngaan dai jiu pin').


TERMINOLOGY; THERE WILL BE A TEST:
Optic nerve: 視神經 ('si san king').
Optic chiasm: 視交叉 ('si gaau chaa').
Ganglion: 神經節 ('san king jit').
Optic tract: 視束 ('si chuk').
Photoreceptor cells: 感光細胞 ('gam gwong sai baau').
Eye socket (orbit): 眼眶 ('ngaan kwang');
* note that normally 眶 is pronuounced as 'hong'.



An hour and a half later I was at the hospital discussing results of the tests taken during the full physical (making sure I am not a zombie, daemon, or space alien ..... errm, blood, urine, tomography, sonography, and running uphill on a treadmill). Only two blocks away from my eye doctor's building, but I smoked the "pipe for visiting my eye doctor" in between.

The name is because I have it with me on every visit to the eye doctor.

It's round, and looks like an eye on a stalk.
I think it's appropriate.


Scarcely five minutes after I was supposed to be at my second appointmet, I was out for the day and heading to lunch. Showing up early often pays off, and I think many medical people appreciate it. It leaves time for kvetchy old folks who emphasize that they could have been doing something far more worth while why are they waiting good gracious why is everything so slow it's close to my nap time, and the crazy white people who want a horn installed in the middle of their forehead because they're channelling for a mythological beast that they were in a past life, or their most recent tattoo got infected.



Lunch was excellent, albeit much earlier than I normally eat.
By the time I left, the temperature was 95° Fahrenheit.
It was SUPPOSED to be barely over eighty! If that!
This is why air condition was relevant.
I'm blaming the yuppies.


Fahrenheit: 華氏溫標 ('waa si wan piu').



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================