From the Desk of Lemming Boy

So, yesterday I woke up and my left eye was kinda itchy.  Having a somewhat regular history of hay fever and random allergies, I didn’t think much of it.  By the evening, however, the outside corner ON THE EYEBALL ITSELF had, for lack of a better term, swelled up like a water balloon.  Yeah, pretty gross.  (In case you were interested, I found out later the condition is callled Chemosis, and it’s an allergic response.  Look it up if you really want to know what it looks like.  I’d take a picture of my eye, but that’s really nasty.)

Normally, I’m the kind of person who will eschew going to the doctor for most ailments, preferring to simply hunker down and weather it out. For things like broken bones, strep throat or, say, EXPLODING EYEBALLS, I figure medical attention would be prudent.  Seeing as it was 10:30pm, off to the local emergency room I went.

Checking in at the ER, the receptionist asked what I was there for.  I told her, then showed her, to which she replied, “Ew.”  Not the most reassuring thing to hear from a hospital staffer.  On the one hand, it vindicated my decision to seek medical attention, but if hospital-type folks recoil in horror, it doesn’t exactly set a person at ease.

Thankfully, the doctors and nurses in the ER proper didn’t even flinch when looking at it, so I supposed it wasn’t all that bad.  My doctor nonchalantly announced that it was the aforementioned chemosis, prescribed me some over-the-counter eye drops, and sent me on my merry way.  Eye drops every four hours to help reduce the irritiation, wait for it to pass.  In other words, hunker down and weather through it.   All for the low, low price of three hours and a $75 copay.  Oh well.  Better to get a professional opinion than to just hope my eyeball doesn’t explode all over the person in front of me.

On the bright side, during all that time, I was able to compose this haiku about the experience. Hope you enjoy.

My left eyeball swells–
so uncooperative!
This really sucks hard

Tags: eyeball, from, head, my, secede, to, wants

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 14:55 and is filed under Crap I Did Today. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.