Last week, I accompanied my father to an eye hospital to get his eye examined for a suspected cataract. The hospital examined his eye and confirmed the presence of a cataract. They recommended surgically implanting an artificial lens in his eye—a fairly common procedure these days for cataract treatment.

We were told that certain pre-operative tests would be required before the actual surgery. This included an eye sonography and a few other eye tests that were completed at the hospital during the same visit. All that remained were certain routine blood tests and an electrocardiogram (ECG), to confirm his fitness to undergo the surgery.

For the ECG, we were advised to visit an external cardiologist. As for the blood tests, my father opted to get those done by an external pathological lab (being 86 years old, this would save him some trouble, as this lab could send a technician to his home to collect the blood samples).

We decided to get his ECG done the next day, and the blood tests the day after. I phoned the cardiologist to tell him that the eye hospital had advised us to visit him. He asked us to come first thing next morning.

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