This patient lived on the
edge of Beverly Hills,
far up Topanga Canyon Road.
Turning into a side street, I stopped at a guard house. It was not impressive –
a tiny shack next to a commercial port-a-potty, but a genuine uniformed guard
asked my business. According to Google, the street beyond held only a dozen
houses, but they were big. Really big.
Following the lady who
greeted me at the door, I walked and walked, passing through room after room
with polished wooden floors, high ceilings, exquisite furnishings, bookshelves
and paintings lining the walls. Movie stars and Arab princes live in such
places. Visit Hearst’s Castle to share the experience.
But sick people are just
sick. A lady was suffering excruciating right eye pain. She hadn’t injured it.
My diagnosis was acute glaucoma, an emergency.
You may know about
glaucoma, a disease where fluid drainage from the eye is blocked, increasing
pressure, eventually causing blindness. Experts advise you to have a yearly
check, but this is for common, chronic glaucoma where pressure rises slowly, so
doctors can make an early diagnosis and treat it with eye drops. It’s painless.
Acute glaucoma, where drainage stops abruptly, is rare and very painful.
This was not news to the
patient who explained that many family members were blind from the disease. She
agreed to go to UCLA’s emergency room but asked for something to help her
vomiting; severe pain often causes vomiting. I gave an injection and took my
leave.
Phoning the next day, I
was flabbergasted to learn she had stayed home. She didn’t want to travel
because of the vomiting, she explained. By evening it had diminished, but so
had the pain. She decided to wait. She had an appointment at the
ophthalmologist for the afternoon.
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