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July 1, 2011

Cornea Issues

I woke up this morning to my sweet puppy (7 year old boxer/mix) licking my face.  She is so sweet in the morning and is always excited to get some snuggle time. This time however, she was so excited she lovingly swatted the air in the direction of my face… Unfortunately, I moved just in time to have her nail dig into my right eyeball.  Yes. Eyeball.  I sat up and screamed.  She quickly moved to the foot of the bed… “Okay, I think I may have just lost my eye.” I told myself.  “Plenty of people live just fine with one eye, so when you reach for your socket if the ball is hanging out of it, it’s OKAY. I’ll put a bag over my head, and ask my neighbor to take me to the ER.”  After a few quick moments of encouraging self-talk, I reached for my eye, only to discover that YES it was still there, but there was definitely something wrong.  I ran to the bathroom to discover a red line going horizontally across my eyeball and from the line down, it was all red.  Then the tears came.  Not b/c I was crying but b/c my eye couldn’t quit making tears…then the burning, then the blurriness, then the sensitivity to light, then the feeling something was stuck in my eye, then I passed out.  Just kidding.

I didn’t take a picture at the moment, but it looked something like this:
I immediately had flashbacks of sitting in class watching classmates walk in with eye patches. I remember thinking how HORRIBLE that would be. Not because of the pain, but because of the humiliation.   (Perhaps you were one of those kids, in which case, I’m sure it was a good character building exerciseJ)  Regardless, I shook my head with disapointment.  “This is my time for the patch. Its finally here.”  I definitely needed coffee before I could make any logical further plans regarding the eye. 

With one eye shut, and a few loud grumbles, I made coffee, fed the dogs, and eventually sat down in front of my computer.  As I googled, “Cornea scratch”  I could feel my eye getting worse.  Everything I read told me to go to the doctor.  I paced around the house telling myself, “You’re fine. You’re fine. Ask a few people, you'll see... they’ll tell you to stay home.” I HATE going to the doctor. But, long story short, everyone I spoke with told me to go.  My biggest concern was infection. So, I went and my concern was validated.  “That’s some scratch!  Goes halfway across your eyeball.”  “Yep” I said.  “She got me good.”  After some prescriptions for the pain, sensitivity to light, and antibiotic for a possible infection, I’m good.  In fact, I’m feeling great, it still burns when I blink, but that's all good!  You know that feeling when you wake up from a nightmare and then you realize it was a dream and you're so happy? Well, it is that feeling but better.  I woke up thinking I had lost my eyeball, and I didn't.  That is an awesome feeling.  And better yet, I don’t have to wear the patch.  Although, I secretly think I wanted one.  It would have made for a great conversation starter, some pretty badass pics, and I know the 4th of July would have been a lot better. 
Patch or no patch, this turned out to be a pretty good day :)

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