Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Ol' stink eye

That's what Robert has been calling me for the past day and a half. We went running on the bike trail yesterday and a piece of "something" flew up into my eye. I rubbed at it, figuring I could knock it loose. I didn't. So I kept running, figuring it would work its way out. It didn't. So, I ran with one eye open, one eye closed - which, if I had ever had any experience with it, seemed like running while drunk. I had no peripheral on my right side. My right eye is also much stronger than my left, so what I could see was blurry out of the left eye. Very disconcerting.

When we got home, the eye had started to hurt, especially when open or moving. It had also started to weep badly. I got ready for work and actually DROVE, which was scary - couldn't see much. Not too smart in retrospect. Stopped at CVS to get Visine, which did nothing. Splashing water in the eye didn't do anything either. By now the eye was red and puffy. I showed up at work with dark glasses on. After about an hour, my boss suggested going to the eye doctor, and by that time I was in so much pain, I figured it was a good idea too.

When I got to the eye doctor's office, he numbed my eyes (which was blessed relief) and began poking around. Eek, nothing like SEEING something come directly at your eye and not being able to pull away. He flipped my eyelid up and scooped out the piece of "whatever" that was there. He also informed me that my eyeball had "channels" in it from whatever it was rubbing against my eyelid everytime my eye moved. (EW!) That's what was causing the pain. I felt great for a while, till the numbing stuff wore off, then the pain came back and some of the weeping too. So, my eye shrunk up to about half its size and I ended up looking like a Picasso painting. :) Hence, the nickname "stinkeye" and "one eyed willy". So after a day of rest and some anti-biotic drops, it's on its way back to normal. My eyes still look asymetrical, but I'm not taking a picture to show you. I couldn't paint or do much of anything because my vision was blurry all day.

So, a new, weird experience for me. Back to painting today. Yay....

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The most amazing thing about this story is that you... kept... running...!! I think I would've sat right down and waited for someone to go get the car LOL - I'm glad you didn't sprain an ankle too! Wow, I can sympathize. Anything eye related completely heebs me out. I can't even get my pupils dilated. I hope your eye is much better and you're back to your normal routine and cranking out more beautiful paintings!

Kim Klabe said...

Yeah, well...I never said I was smart!

It's better, for the most part now. A little blurry still, but doesn't hurt anymore. Thanks for your thoughts!

This Crazy Life of 437 said...

SEE! SEE! SEE! You just proved it! Running is bad for your health!!

Get in a damned car the next time you want to go somewhere!