The Eye. It Gets Better. (And by better, I mean "worse.")

So I was wrong on my prognosis of my eye.  When I woke up Saturday morning, this is what I looked like.

Let me give you a closeup:

These are crappy-quality cell phone camera pictures, but you can kind of see.  The white of my eye was all swollen, swelling up around my iris.  It looked like clear jelly in the outside corner of my eye, swollen up and hanging over my eyelid.  

Gross.  Seriously.

As I sat in the chair nursing Zadie at 6 AM, I started praying.  I had no idea what was going on, so I prayed, "Lord, if I'm supposed to go see the eye doctor, let him be open today."  I didn't know if he was open on Saturdays or not.  So I called later.  Not only was he open, but he had an opening for an appointment.  I took it.

You know it's bad when you come in and the receptionist says, "Boy, you weren't kidding."  Doesn't even ask who I am.

I described my symptoms to the doctor, and I think he was baffled.  He would look at my eye, then walk away and take some notes, then walk back and just stare at it with his head tilted.  He went and washed his hands, came over and looked at it (without touching it), then went back and washed his hands again.

He said it did look like a "immuno response" (allergic reaction), but I think was confused as to why both eyes weren't affected.  He gave me some steroid eye drops, and told me he was going to check as to whether they were safe to take while nursing.  He called me later to tell me he'd checked with two pharmacists, and they all agreed they were safe.  I started using them every hour, then backed down to every two hours that evening.  It definitely made a difference.

Of course, we had all sorts of errands to do in town that morning as well.....  We hit all 3 county shopping Meccas (Orscheln, WalMart, and Country Mart) with my eye in all it's swollen, red, and leaking glory.  I got a lot of stares.

Sunday the doctor called to check in.  The drops were definitely working, so we kept on it.  But by then I was getting a stuffed nose.

By Tuesday, my good eye looked worse than my bad eye.  I had come down with a cold or allergies or something....  Stuffed nose, sore throat, the works.

All I can figure is that this is allergies or a virus, but instead of breathing it in through my nose or mouth, I rubbed it into my eye, and that's how it entered my body.

I'm feeling better today, except for a hacking cough....  Major ab workout - not the way I would choose to find my abs again after a baby, but oh well.  I'm only using the drops twice a day now (a week later)(Really?  Has it been a week?  Where did this week go???).  My eye looks and feels pretty much normal, but my vision in that eye is still blurred a little bit (like it's teared up).  I'm hoping it's not damaged.... I have been saying this is the year I'm going to get glasses, but I assumed it would be from age, not from illness.

Anyhow.  So that's what eye've been up to.

(har, har)