I Screwed Up... BIG TIME

 Once upon a time, there lived a woman who marched to a beat of her own. It can be said that she wasn't the best at following the admonitions of those who tried to "show her the way" in various areas of her life. She prided herself on getting away with "cutting corners" where she could. And she always looked for ways to "do it my way." She seemed to be doing very well with her plan until one day..... UH OH!!!!

Oh wait, did you think you were reading a Fairy Tale? The kind were everyone lives happily ever after? Well, you can forget that one. This is more like a horror story about a girl who screwed up... BIG TIME. Yep, you guessed it. I injured my eye, and let me just say, it hurt really, REALLY bad.

Because of this tiny, itty bitty contact, I now have a corneal ulceration. Yes, I will again state that this condition is 100% my fault. Grrrrrr. I hate when I have to admit that. It just feels and sounds so wrong. Anyhow, here's how it all happened. A few days ago (like 4 days to be exact), my left eye began to feel scratchy. I decided I'd better take my contacts out that night before I went to bed. But did I do it? No, of course not. I had dozed off and when I woke an hour or so later, I was too lazy to get up and take them out. So Thursday morning comes and my eye feels a little worse, but guess who doesn't have a pair of back-up glasses? Ummm... yes, again, that would be ME. GRRRRR. Obviously I still didn't take them out. By that middle of the day I was really starting to feel serious discomfort. I knew I was in trouble. I just didn't realize how much trouble.

After work that evening, I F-I-N-A-L-L-Y took the contacts out. I didn't realize that by this point, it was too late. The next morning when I woke up the eye was more inflamed, weeping, and painful, than it had been the night before. Obviously, I didn't put a contact in that eye. Off to work I went... only seeing clearly out of my right eye. The pain continued to increase as the day wore on. I even went to the school nurse and got an ice pack. By 1pm I had decided to try and get in to see my doctor. That was a big NO. Since it was Friday afternoon, all the available slots were filled. I knew I had to be seen as soon as possible, so as soon as school dismissed, I went to an urgent care facility.

After an examination, the physician's assistant said I had a foreign body in my eye. She tried to remove it but was unable to do so. She immediately sent me to an ophthalmologist. Once I arrived there, the doctor did another examination and told me that I did NOT have a foreign body in my eye. Nope, instead he said I had a corneal ulceration. Nice! And what, you may ask, causes said ulceration? According to the doctor, contact lens abuse. A-B-U-S-E... such a harsh word. I like to think of it as contact lens "over use." That has a softer ring to it, don't you think?

Ok, the injury is the result of abuse. GRRRRR!!! In order to heal the eye, I have been prescribed two different types of eye drops. The first dilates the pupil (and basically paralyzes the eye) in order for the eye to rest. I use this drop once every day.

The second medication is the antibiotic used to kill the bacteria that is eating away at my cornea. Yummy. I instill one drop every two hours while I'm awake.

As of this very moment, my eye feels 100 times better. I still cannot wear a contact on that eye. Basically I feel like I'm lopsided. I can deal with that though. I have to go back to the eye doctor on Tuesday afternoon. Hopefully he'll tell me it is safe for me to start wearing contacts again. Regardless, from here on out, the contacts come out every night. Even though I was wearing the kind that are supposedly safe for overnight use, I am not getting any younger (I know, big shocker), and I want to have my eye sight intact for many years to come.

And they all lived......