Eyes Have It

Pain, that is. More specifically, my left eye. I woke up yesterday morning with stabbing pains in my left eye, to which I immediately thought "That's not good." Yes, I'm a fast thinker at 6 in the morning.

I've been having some intermittent problems with my left eye for months now. It would get rather itchy and bloodshot, would feel like I had a sand lodged in it and have a bit of stickiness. I do know what bacterial conjunctivitis looks like and as my symptoms waxed and waned, ranging from 20 minutes to a couple of hours, I chalked it up to allergies and muddled on. My only concession was to take my contact lenses out as I didn't want to tear them as I rubbed my eye.

So Monday night when it started up again I didn't think too much about it. I took out my contacts, popped on my glasses and tried to finish what I was doing. Then it started to hurt, a dull throbbing type of pain. I gave up and went to bed, but I found sleep to be difficult. Finally I feel asleep with the thought that if I could just get a couple of hours of sleep my eye would be better.

Except it wasn't. I was in agony when Her Majesty woke me up. I could barely open my eye as the light was causing me a great deal of pain, and the stabbing sensations weren't helping me. True to form I tried to function - changing Clive, getting the younger kids breakfast and waking Miss Thing up - but when it came time to drive Miss Thing to her bus I gave up and had the Hermit take her. I just couldn't open my eyes long enough to see. I was going to give it a few hours and see how I was, but a snort of derision from the Hermit and a wave of nausea from the pain quickly made me see (no pun intended) I was being silly. I phoned the GP and got an appointment for later than morning.

After being questioned by both the young medical student - who wanted to know what skiing was like in New England - and the GP, and having dye dropped into my eye during which I felt like an extra in CSI what with the black light, it was determined there were no ulcers or tears. They concluded I had viral conjunctivitis, which left me both relieved and dubious. Relieved because it could be treated by them and I wouldn't have to go to a specialist like the Hermit did when he injured his eye, but dubious because viral conjunctivitis usually isn't painful. Maybe I had a severe ongoing infection as this has been an issue for a while and the pain was just the next step in my symptoms? I was left with a bit of guilt that I should've gone sooner rather than letting it get to this point.

In the end I really don't care as the steroid eyedrops have done the trick. I still had a bit of trouble yesterday afternoon when I left the Hermit asleep on the couch and took the kids to get the usual pizza-and-DVDs (all much cheaper on a Tuesday) - I think Sparky was more than a little nervous as I covered my face at stop lights, trying to get some relief as tears of pain poured down my face from the setting sun - but I managed to get home without crashing. Today is much better. The stabbing pain has gone and I'm left with just a bit of soreness and a lovely shade of pink sclera. I drove the kids to school without any problems, just looking very dorky as I prop my sunglasses over my rarely worn eyeglasses.

What's the lesson learned from all this? Go to the doctor sooner, you say? Don't be silly. The lesson here is to pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that this doesn't happen again.