Eavesdropping: a Writer’s Job Skill

by Gloria

Writers are good at eavesdropping. In the waiting room of Duke Eye Center, I listened and idly took notes as a way of keeping my “ear” for conversation fresh. When you write for a living, eavesdropping is a job skill that you constantly polish.

A couple of older gentlemen talked about their cataracts. Apparently pieces of a cataract can “float” on the eyes. “I noticed it when I was trying to walk downstairs,” one of the men said. “I’m lucky I didn’t break my neck.” The other man nodded and said, “I know just what you mean.”

“Me, I can’t stand anything near my eyes,” said a rotund man. “Last time I had to get my eyes dilated, I started hyperventilating. It got real ugly real fast.” This man’s 11-month-old grandson was in the hospital for surgery on what he called “lazy eye.”

There was something very comforting in this group of softly-talking strangers, about twenty of us crammed into a waiting area no bigger than an average-size living room, while our loved ones underwent their eye surgeries.

My husband was there for a procedure called a trabeculectomy, in which the surgeon creates a tiny opening in the white of the eye to relieve pressure caused by glaucoma. The operation went well. Regular checkups can help detect this disease in its early stages before irreversible damage occurs, by the way.
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