Friday 18 June 2010

Stupid eye!

Grrrr.... if it's not one thing it's another.

My ankle is on the mend and hasn't prevented any more rides since I last blogged but unfortunately, at 5.30am this morning I awoke with a pain in my eye.  Still half asleep I made my way to the bathroom and found that my left eye-lid was swollen. And I mean SWOLLEN! It was huge! If I hadn't have known better I would have thought I'd unsuccessfully attempted a round with Tyson! And before you ask it wasn't Mikey beating me either!  There had been no eye trauma... as far as I was concerned I went to bed as usual; no pain, no problems.

Hmm... Maybe if I went back to sleep, the swelling may have gone by the time the alarm went off.  ooOOoo... maybe it was just a dream! At 7.30 I stirred and tried to open my eyes.  Phewph, I could still see and the pain was minimal compared to earlier.  Ooops NO! In my sleepy state I failed to realise that I had only opened my right eye. I tried to open my left ... OUCH!  My eye had further increased in size. I attempted to open it again. It wouldn't even open half way and the pain was immense when I tried to open it.  I had to keep it shut!

Very unattractive pic showing my swollen eye. 
Only having sight with one eye is quite odd, everything you take for granted like dressing, eating brekkie etc, is quite difficult in monocular vision.  Pouring boiling water for a cuppa was pretty damn scary!

I phoned my Ma, a nurse, who usually tells me I'll be all right. She'd tell me to pull my socks up even if there was blood pumping out of me.  As a child, I stood on a long rusty nail which went straight through my foot (coming out the other side) but she was confident that I would be OK as my Tetanus shots were up to date, so despite the blood and through and through hole, there was no trip to Casualty for me. In my early teens I was hit by a car, which then stopped with its wheel on my foot!  My foot had tyre tracks embedded into the skin, but no Xray department for me.  Both times she was right and I was OK, no lasting damage! 

But this morning I was surprised when she came round to assess my eye and told me to see a Doctor! She rarely tells me to see a Doctor!

I have an appointment for later this morning.  I hope they can perform miracles as I was planning a 15 mile ride today as I have set myself a target which, until today was achievable if I pushed myself a little bit more than usual.

... Damn stupid eye!

2 comments:

Small Adventures said...

Man...when it rains it pours =( I really hope you get to feeling better,and it's nothing serious (and you get that ride in).

I'll be thinking great happy/healing thoughts for you all day,my friend.

Steve

KatieCake said...

Thank you for your kind words Steve.

The Doc gave me some miracle eye ointment that quite rapidly started reduce the swelling and by late yesterday afternoon I could pretty much open my eye again.

Unfortunately, despite my nursing background I cant stand "eyes". Just watching someone put contact lenes in makes my knees wobble and the thought of eye drops makes me queasy. I couldn't even put them in anyone else, nevermind myself. In the past I have had to be pinned down to have eye drops administered.

So the last thing I wanted was eye drops or ointment...