Eye Eye Captain

I am the first to admit that I am a lazy contact lense wearer.  I always have been.  I keep them in for months at a time, don't wash them, sleep with them in every night, the list goes on.  Even though I knew it was wrong, I still did it.  Why didn't I knock it off and take them out every night like a good girl?  Probably because I never suffered any major problems because of it.  Until now.

My right eye started killing me on Thursday night while I was out to dinner with Lanie.  I barely made it home in time before I was sure I would have to pull over and have someone come get me.  I rushed into the bathroom and took my contacts out.  The pain was getting worse and my eye was leaking water at a steady pace.  There was a moment where I thought maybe I should go to the urgent care clinic.  But in the end, I decided to sleep on it and see how I felt in the morning.

The morning came and my eye was even worse.  It was blood red and still gushing water.  I couldn't open it without crying out in pain and the slightest light made me want to die.  Rob took me to the urgent care, where they shone bright lights in my eye and put dye in it to see if there were any scratches or chunks missing.  After about 15 mins of shaking and crying from the pain, they realized hey just weren't equipped to get technical so they sent me to the emercancy room at Hoag Hospital.

Rob kept me company in the waiting room, cracking jokes and helping me forget that I looked like a cross between Jack Sparrow and a gang member.  I'm so thankful he was able to be there for me.  I was pretty scared and he did a great job of keeping me calm.
After wating around for about an hour, I was finally told that it appears to be a "cornea ulcer."  Yikes!  Now I was getting scared.  What if i couldn't ever wear contacts again?  What if I lost my vision for good?  They gave me a prescription for antibacterial drops and vicodin along with a referral to see an opthamoliogist on Monday morning.

Monday rolled around and the doc gave me some good news and not so good news.  The good news is there is no cornea ulcer, just an infection that was clearing up.  The not so good news is that he sees a cataract in my right eye.  This is unrelated to my injury or even wearing contacts.  It's genetic and there's not much I can do about it.  The positive thing about it is when it grows and gets to a certain size, I can have cataract surgery (which is a form of lasik) and the insurance covers it.  Sweet!

I have another appointment on June 5th with the opthamologist, just to make sure everything is ok. Even if I'm given the go ahead to wear contacts again, I don't think I'll wear them every day.  This gave me the scare I needed, and now I am going to take good care of my eye balls.