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March 26, 2009

Ow, Ow and Thrice OW!

More eye problems. Another trip to A&E. More time off work during a period I can ill afford it.

I'm used to the drill by now. Left eye starts feeling funny. Vision goes a bit squiffy. Start getting increasingly photo-phobic to the point where any bright lights make me want to run away screaming. Accident & Emergency doctors get ready! I'll be seeing you soon!

This time around the on-call doctor took more time with me, possibly because it was my 5th... 6th... trip to the hospital in under a year. Methinks they're getting tired of me. I KNOW I'm getting tired of the routine. After sucking in air over her teeth for a good 15 minutes and asking me to look up, down, left, right (fight, fight, fight) and scanning through the notes from my umpteen previous visits she said that she thinks the root cause of my issues is some corneal scarring which has dodgy edges and which might keep being lifted and then infected by the bacteria living on my eyelids.

Cue a few more minutes of air-sucking and she went in.

Now, I can actually believe her diagnosis! The problems are always with the same eye and the pattern of redness always seems to be the same, consistently starting off in the region she did her thang. Based on that, I'm happy she did what she did. I do, however, wish that she'd at least have warned me that I would be off work for a couple of days.

Pretty much, she said that the scarring on my cornea had dodgy, sticky-up edges. To 'correct' that, she attacked me with some foreceps (tweezers), stripping off bits of cornea around the problem area to smooth things out and to hopefully give me a nice flat scar instead of a jagged one, I guess.

What she waited to tell me was that the local anaesthetic she used would wear off in about an hour, at which time I'd be in a WORLD OF PAIN. I managed to go back to my office and stay there for about two hours before my thresholds were totally eclipsed and I headed back home to find some darkness for me to scream into. My journey home was almost comical. I could just about make out buses, so I took one. Taxis were far too small to register! Needless to say I didn't make it into the office yesterday.

I'm hoping that this will be the simple cure for all the problems I've been having... and not just the start of a saga of "oh, it still didn't heal right, let's have another go..." That would SUCK! I can't afford any more time off work right now. The perils of being contract scum.

I guess we'll just have to wait and... see... or not!

Oh, and do you want to know what really sucks? My DVD copy of "Please Call Home" arrived and I've not been able to watch it (for obvious reasons!)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh mate you are in the bloody wars a lot aren't you? I'm figuring that you don't have any kind of private health insurance either. Maybe it's time to bite that particular bullet? What's the DVD about? Get better soon pal.

Ken Skinner said...

Naw, I used to be the biggest advocate of the NHS... until this stuff started going on :-)

The DVD's about the Allman Brothers Band during the period that they all lived in The Big House, ie the last few years before Duane and Berry died. I doubt that it'll add anything more to the story that I've not already heard, but I figure there could be some interesting interviews and a human spin... or not...

Anonymous said...

That sucks. That is all that comes to my mind... that it sucks.

I wish you well and hope this goes away for you...

Regards,
Frank

Ken Skinner said...

Thanks for the well-wishing. I'm doing much better today. Check-up at the doc's, who said that I was healing... slowly... and that I need to stay on the antibiotics longer than originally thought... and I should avoid using computers (my JOB!!!).

Maybe I should quit the day job, practice like a be-atch and become a session playa...

Hmmm... I'm sure my mortgage provider will be supportive!

Furtheron said...

That sounds simply bloody horrible... I hate anything to do with eyes...

Hope you are on the mend soon and hope that this is the final solution

Ken Skinner said...

D'you know what's funny, though? When stuff like this happens, the first couple of times it really is horrible, then, well, you kinda get used to it. I think that once you know what to expect your brain copes better. Going into this, as I sat in A&E on Tuesday morning, I pretty much knew that I'd be in pain for a few days, then things would start to heal and, at least for a while, I'd be okay. I knew that for the first couple of days putting antibiotic gel etc into the eye would be really uncomfortable, but that the discomfort was temporary due to the existing irritation.

At least it means I get to stay home and play this weekend, for the most part :-)

Col said...

Chill brother. Get better fast. Then back to the same old shit.

"I'm walkin' to N'awlin's..."