Last week I noticed a weird burning on my eye. I even commented that, "I think Rosemary scratched my eyelid, with battery acid". How she would have gotten into something like said acid is not quite known but didn't seem too out of the ordinary as she came to me the other day with a cigarette butt in her mouth. Chewed. She's a daredevil, that one.
I went to the urgent care center in our neighborhood as it was after regular business hours and waited for my name to be called. My eye was looked over quite promptly and quickly diagnosed as a simple staph infection; however, if I had known that there was an in-house doctor there who looked as fine as the one who had met with me (from what I could tell with my one good, unswollen eye, anyway) I probably would have gone in for that weird ingrown toenail-thing I had in June. I skip out to my car in the parking lot with a brown bag of ointment (free!) and antibiotic (not free, but necessary, I suppose).
Next morning: eyelid swollen, rash spreading, insatiable itch. Uh oh.
I head back to the doctor after much prodding from my husband as I really hate spending money on something like an itchy eye; but this seemed worthy and I couldn't ignore the fact that I might get to see Super Cute Doctor again. After waiting nearly an hour on a Saturday to be seen (and after lazily reading a tattered People magazine from 2005 and more than a little weirded out by the amount of germs that were probably living on those pages) I am finally told that it's shingles.
What?
I'm promptly given one of those cheap handouts on the wall next to, 'Asthma: It Ain't So Bad' and, 'So This is Your First Yeast Infection', or so I remember. It's been days since I was there.
So I did what anyone with an unknown affliction would do: I raced back home to log onto the internet and typed shingles into Google. I found out that it's basically adult chicken pox and after a little more research, one common denominator was that if it comes anywhere near the eyes, to get medical help immediately as it can cause blindness. Shit. This stuff started on my eyelash line.
I guess that's why I'm currently on two different antibiotics totalling 5500 mg/day for ten days; cause if I go blind tomorrow, I'm gonna be really ticked.
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2 comments:
that doesn't sound like any fun at all. scratchy eye is one thing but itchy, rashy eye with potential blindness it certainly not a blissful walk in the rain for anyone. hope you get feeling better soon.
Um, holy shit Michelle, are you ok? Jesus, girl, when you have an itchy eye, yes, please, go see a doctor. And this is coming from me after having pledged not to return to one until I'm either 40 years old or I've lost a limb (cause doctors mostly just rip you off and tell you nothing.) Seriously though, kiddo, I really hope you're doing better. I'll make sure and send you as much positive energy and good vibes as I can muster.
marko
P.S. At the risk of sounding like my mother, make sure you take ALL of your antibiotics and medication and whatever - otherwise the infection will come back!
Ok, sorry, mom-mode off now.
peace
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