AUGUSTA, GA – Thanks to the assistance of both Oncology & ENT, a local ophthalmologist is relieved to find out a patient’s periorbital mass is simply just his nose.

“Phew, that was a close call,” uttered Dr. Scott O’Malley, Professor of Ophthalmology at the Masters Eye Center in Augusta. He wiped a considerable amount of sweat from his brow. “You can never be too careful with these things. As far as I know, the nose is a benign growth.”

O’Malley was performing a comprehensive eye exam on his patient when he came across the pointy-shaped protrusion. He observed that it increased in size caudally before retreating back into the patient’s face just above the lip. It was also notable for two perforations located on its undermost side.

“At the time I was incredibly concerned, yes, very much so,” O’Malley explained, hugely appreciative of the timely consultations from his colleagues. “The periorbital growth was situated between both the left and right eye. Thankfully, it wasn’t causing any mass effect on either one. No vision loss, no papilledema. I knew I had to act quickly.”

The patient has taken heed of the advice of both consultants and will be finding a new ophthalmologist.

NORCROSS, GA – Area ophthalmologist Rick Cavalier believes in taking full advantage of dilated pupils during his eye exams, which is why he not only uses special magnifying lenses but his own index finger to examine all of the critical tissues in the back of the eye.  

“I remember back in medical school when you examined the heart, lungs, and abdomen you always wanted to palpate the area in question, it was always one of the techniques you used,” explained Cavalier as he wiped some of his patient’s tears on his pant leg.  “Ophthalmologists might press on your closed eyeball to get a sense of intraocular pressure but that’s as much palpation as you get.  In my eyes, that’s unacceptable.” 

Cavalier goes through all the motions when it comes to a comprehensive dilated eye exam, but then takes it a little further.  By using a little more eye drops than usual, Cavalier gets the pupils maximally dilated so that he can successfully pass his index finger through them. 

“There’s a lot of information you can gather from how a patient’s lens and vitreous humor feels against your bare finger,” Cavalier told Gomerblog, all of us trying collectively not to gag.  “There’s nothing more satisfying than feeling healthy retinas and optic nerves at the tip of my fingers.”  He adds that his favorite maneuver is the full finger sweep, in which he rotates his wrist and arm 360 degrees to fully palpate the entire inside of an eyeball.  “It’s like retroflexion on colonoscopy, but my finger and your eyeball.”  

Cavalier hopes more ophthalmologists follow his footsteps, though he offers some advice to those who do. 

“Obviously wash your hands, but also clip those fingernails and make sure they’re not too sharp,” he warned.  “I figured out the hard way, believe me.” 

BOISE, ID – America’s favorite vegetable, the potato, went for its yearly exam today.  “Its five eyes continue to be in good health with perfect 20/20 vision,” said spud ophthalmologist Dr. George Lemer with his potato patient’s permission.  “He denied any loss of vision centrally or peripherally, blurry vision, redness, pain, itchiness, discharge, grittiness, tearing, dryness, light sensitivity, halos, or styes.  Visual field testing, visual acuity, tonometry, pretty much everything was normal.  He does have mild hyperglycemia per his primary care physician, but I saw no evidence of diabetic retinopathy on my exam today.”  Dr. Lemer recommends the potato have routine follow-up in one year if he hasn’t been tragically baked, mashed, steamed, fried, or quartered up and planted into the ground by then.

ATLANTA, GA – In the emergency room (ER), Emory ophthalmologist Sebastian Fovea confirmed the diagnosis and broke the news to his patient Arnav Patel, who knew what was coming: “I’m sorry.  You have been blinded by beauty.”

Patel tells Gomerblog his story.

“It happened earlier this morning,” he began.  “I went to my favorite coffee shop, you know, to get my morning caffeine fix and try to catch up on emails.  Maybe after 20 minutes, I saw her out of the corner of my eye.  A young woman, beautiful, she might have been the most stunning person I’ve ever seen.  She looked at me and smiled, and that’s when it happened: I lost my vision.”

Patel had always heard of the phrase being “blinded by beauty,” but assumed it was a figurative saying.

“I could feel what I thought were tears pouring down my face,” Patel continued.  “Mind you, I couldn’t see any more.  Others in the coffee shop screamed, saying my eyes were bleeding.  They called an ambulance, and the paramedics told me that the whites of my eyes were no more, that there were just raw empty spaces where my eyes used to me.  One of the paramedics said that the wetness I was feeling on my clothes wasn’t coffee spilled amidst the panic; it was aqueous humor.”

He was taken to the ER where Fovea was called to evaluate.

“Yeah, it was kind of gruesome,” said Fovea while peeling off his gloves caked with liquified ocular ooze.  “Not only was he blinded by beauty, it caused his eyes to explode, hemorrhage, and liquify.  Poor guy even sustained bilateral orbital floor fractures.  She must’ve been a knockout.”

In other news, Patel has confided to the ER staff that the same coffee-shop girl caused his “heart to skip a beat.”  Cardiology has been consulted and will take the patient for cardiac catheterization.

BROOKLYN, NY – Emergency room physicians at Maimonides Medical Center did not waste any time consulting ophthalmology to restore the vision of Mr. Potato Head after he presented earlier today with a chief complaint of “my eyes falling out of my head.”

“Mr. Potato Head did the right thing seeking medical attention right away,” said Maimonides on-call ophthalmologist Dr. George Lemer, who described a particularly gruesome scene at bedside.  “He was in hospital bed 4, covered in his own body parts.  Mrs. Potato Head was in tears, obviously shaken, but never left his side.  It wasn’t bloody, but it wasn’t pretty either.”

Similar to retinal detachment in human beings, ocular detachment can rapidly lead to blindness if not promptly treated in tubers like Mr. Potato Head.  Thankfully, Lemer is one of the world’s most capable ophthalmologists, having specialized in spud eyes for the last three decades.

This is not Mr. Potato Head’s first hospitalization for organ detachment.  He has been a frequent flyer ever since his birth on May 1, 1952, needing medical care for recurrent eye detachment as well as recurrent ear, nose, and mouth detachment.  Due to his peculiar anatomy, Mr. Potato Head is extremely high risk for organ loss any time he bends over, bumps into something, laughs, or is pat on the back too hard.  He was even seen by Palliative Care during his last hospitalization in September 2017 but told them he was not yet ready for hospice at that time.

Today’s episode was the result of a very violent sneeze.  “I could feel it coming on,” Mr. Potato Head explained after his wife, Mrs. Potato Head, reattached his mouth.  “I tried to remove my nose before it was too late, but I didn’t act quick enough.  My entire face fell off.  It was quite the sneeze.  In fact, we still can’t find my hat!”

ATLANTA, GA – It was a scene filled with excitement this morning as millions of people from all over the country ventured outside to observe the 2017 solar eclipse. Perhaps nobody enjoyed it more than local man Todd Simmons, who was seen shortly after the event beaming from ear to ear with blood pouring from his sun-scorched eyes.  “It was so beautiful,” cried Simmons, wiping away congealed corneal tissue from his cheeks.  “It was even better than I expected.”

Immediately following the eclipse, witnesses reported seeing Simmons let out a big contented sigh, his shirt covered in his own melted retinas.  The 36-year-old Uber driver had been looking forward to the eclipse for months.  “I thought about using those special solar eclipse glasses, but I really wanted the full experience,” announced Simmons proudly as he blindly stumbled his way through the eclipse viewing crowd.

Despite numerous news sources and government agencies, including NASA, encouraging people to use appropriate eye protection, Simmons thought it would ruin the experience. “YOLO,” he stated with a big grin on his blood-splattered face.

At press time, Simmons was seen recounting the extraordinary experience with a nearby telephone pole.