How I almost became a pirate. October 30, 2008

 

I know I mentioned a few days ago that I had iritis. Essentially my right eye was red, teary, and really painful. No contact lenses allowed– that made it worse. I finally went to the doctor on Monday when on Sunday night my eye burned and teared and turned blood red. It looked like I was half-possessed.

 

The doctor poked my face and burned my retina with his little flashlight thing. Then he asked if it was pinkeye. I kind of just looked at him. Then I said, “I don’t think so… I was hoping you would know.” He ignored me and asked a few more questions and eventually ruled out pinkeye. Then he declared it iritis, and the epic journey to RiteAid for the eyedrops-that-cost-more-than-a-novel-at-Borders (take a wild guess where I would rather have spent that Andrew Jackson) and by Tuesday night I was pretty well convinced I was on the road to recovery.

 

Then yesterday I had a checkup appointment with the health center. Just wondering– is it only me that sees a flaw in the logic of having a different doctor examine the improvement in a condition than the doctor who orginally diagnosed it? Just my theory. Anyway, I pointed out to this doctor that, while the pain and redness had gone away, the white spot that had appeared on my cornea on  Monday was still there.

 

He dropped his flashlight/torture device and looked at me funny. “What white spot?”

 

Oh shit.

 

“Um, the one on my cornea. At the top edge of my iris.” He brought the flashlight/bane of my existence back up, and did that stereotypical doctor “Hmmmm…” which made me quite nervous. Then he pronouced that that spot should not be there, and was a bad thing.

 

 

Thank you Dr. Obvious.

 

Then he sent me to the eye clinic in town so that they could look at it more closely with their opthalmology tools/instruments of Satan. (Are you getting the gist that I hate having my eyes checked?)

 

Today was my appointment down in town and the first thing they did was spare me the heinous amounts of paperwork generally required when one switches opthalmologists. I think they have a special policy for dealing with kids from the college. Then they let me sit in the waiting room for like half an hour. Which I spent knitting, but more on that later.

 

Then I was taken to my exam room, and the tech asked me to tell her about my eye in great detail and several times over. She shined a light in my eye for about ten minutes straight. It hurt. I cried. Not happy. She announced that she saw no spot. Then she left me alone in the room for another half an hour. I knitted some more. Then the doctor came in, asked me to tell the whole freaking story once more, because he couldn’t interpret the nurses notes, which should have been court-stenographer-quality considering how many times I told her. He again shone the light in my eyes (I was seeing those rainbow spots everywhere at this point…) and saw the spot.

 

Turns out it was a infiltration– most likely the site where the cornea was breached and the infection in my iris came from there. It’ll take a little longer to heal than everything else, and I can’t wear contacts for another week, but it’ll heal. And the really nice chicky working the eyeglasses counter took one look at me and said “Oooh… you’re looking a little crooked…” referring to my glasses, which are old and have been stepped on/eaten by various human/nonhuman members of my family. Then she took them and fixed them, so now they sit straight on my face and no one will point out to me that my face is crooked. Yay!

 

KNITTING: I mentioned that I knitted at various points during the excursion. I’m working on a last-possible-second birthday present for my friend, and I took it with me to work on. I wanted to show you the level of improvisation that was required by my procrastination.

 

Yes that is a soda can pop-top I'm using as a stitch marker. Cause I'm sweet like that.