Dear Dr House

My dear readers,

Last week was a terrible week for me. I told you I felt 10% better? Well, that was it. It stayed at 10%. A miserable freaking 10%. A few times I came close to going insane. When your eyes hurt, nothing, and I mean nothing in this world can make you feel better. So what did I do last week?

I slept a lot. And I mean a lot. It was drug-induced sleep. The sleep wasn't good sleep. It was bad sleep. I don't like bad sleep. I mean you wake up and then you realise. Hey, the sleep sucked. Then what do you do? Re-sleep?

The anti-biotics gave me a bad tummy. I had to go to the toilet a lot. And I mean a lot. So what I ate really was a waste. In fact, I needn't have eaten at all. (sorry for the visual)

On the positive side, I lost a bit of weight. Yay!

I sewed nothing. And I mean nothing. No bags. No pouches. No nothing. My eyes hurt, you know?

I did some crochet and tatting. I realised that crochet and tatting did not require much eyesight. It's all about the hand movements.

Yesterday was a terrible day for me. I spent the whole morning at the hospital. And by whole morning, I mean I was there early in the morning and I left after noon. I went alone as hubs wanted to sleep in and he had stuff to do. I went to see the eye doctor.

Although my left eye eventually got better and I generally felt better, my right eye got progressively worse. And I had headaches on the right side. Not blinding headaches. Just very achey and panadols just didn't work. And did I mention it felt like I had a golf ball in my right eye? And closing my eyes made everything 100 times worse?

I've never been to the eye clinic at this hospital before. It was eye opening. ;) There were at least a hundred patients. Most were really old people. Everyone had shat eyes. This clinic did not use the electronic number queue system for obvious reasons. Instead a nurse would shout out your name. The problem was everytime a name was called, a few people would stand up wondering if it was his/her turn. I think their ears were shat too. As for me, every time my name was called I had to search for the caller because I had no idea where the voice was coming from.

Well, it took some waiting but I eventually got to see my eye doctor. One thing's clear. I did not have a sinus infection. I pretty much knew that already as I had not recovered. In order to figure out what's wrong with my eyes, the doctor had to do stuff to them. Yep, here's where they murdered my eyes.

After mauling my eyes with the first basic eye exam, I was sent to another building for an eye scan. Yes, more waiting. The eye scan was easy. Just look into a machine and focus on a pretty yellow chrysanthemum and follow the instructions. Then I had to go back to the eye clinic for a couple more tests.

The next test was to test for Dry Eyes. Have you ever had a test for Dry Eyes? No? Me neither. The nurse casually mentioned that she was gonna stick 2 pieces of paper into my eye lids.

WHAT?

I informed the nurse it would surely hurt. She was very reassuring. I would be given some anesthesia and that would prevent any hurting.

It was a lie.

I'll bet she never had a Dry Eyes test done. I'll bet no one ever stuck 2 pieces of paper into her eye lids.

Because it bloody hurt. I would have asked for a whole bottle of anesthesia if I had known. Two lousy drops aren't gonna do anything.

After the 2 pieces of god-searing pain were placed on my eyelids, I had to CLOSE my eyes for 5 whole minutes. And throughout the 5 whole minutes which really felt like an hour, I was screaming in my head:

MOTHER $%#@$$#@#$%^()(& Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Finally I heard the nurse saying:

Two more minutes.

WHAT?
MOTHER $%#@$$#@#$%^()(& Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

After the 2 pieces of god-searing pain were removed from my eyelids, the nurse said she needed to dilate my pupils and she proceeded to drop a lit match in my eyes. Well, it felt like she put a lit match in my eyes.

I'm not sure if I cried loudly. I couldn't tell because I was going
MOTHER $%#@$$#@#$%^()(& Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Eventually the lit match in my eyes went out and I became human again. After more waiting, I saw the eye doctor again. This time round, a more intense eye exam. Yes, more eye mauling. Did it help that the doctor is really young and cute? Yes and no.

Why yes and no?
When he caused me pain during the eye exam, I wanted to punch his face. Then, I remembered his cute face, so I controlled myself.

So, the diagnosis? He has no idea what the hell is wrong with my eyes. All of a sudden I felt like I was in a TV series called House. The show starts with a normal looking person who suddenly falls sick and no one knows what's wrong and Dr House has to be called in. Dr House who's really a druggie has no idea what's wrong too. He also doesn't care. Then someone says something to piss him off and suddenly he cares. He cares a lot and he'll subject the patient to every test known to mankind to figure out which disease the patient is NOT suffering from. Eventually none of the very expensive tests will give him the answer. Instead, it's some comment that someone said, which had nothing to do with the patient and this comment triggers a drug-induced hallucination which reveals the name of the disease to Dr House.

So, my eye doctor is kinda like Dr House too sans the drugs and cane. He wants to know what's wrong with my eyes but he doesn't know. So the tests he had me done were to eliminate the causes. What's good news is this. Structurally my eyes are fine. Oops, almost forgot. I don't have glaucoma.

He also eliminated an eye condition which has to do with narrowing of something and I'm glad I don't have that because it sounds incurable. Oh, good to know I'm not sensitive to light either.

However, I suffer from a eye condition (which he assures me is common but somehow I don't feel assured) which results in OILY EYE LIDS and DRYNESS. I'm not going to try and figure out how oily eye lids go hand in hand with dry eye. But this condition can be controlled. My eye lids are horribly inflamed but not infected. My right eye lids more than the left.

So I have to follow a regime when caring for my eyes. Like warm towel to force out the oil. This is followed by wiping with Lid-Care sterile wipes. This is so cool and I mean it literally. I had no idea such a thing exists. After 1 wipe, I'm sold.

Also I have to apply a anti biotic cream to my eyelids as well. The pharmacist told me I would feel some discomfort after I apply the eye cream and not to be bothered by it.

She lied.

It was more god-searing pain. It's really like putting a hot charcoal into your eyelids. Thankfully after 5 minutes I become human again.

Oh, Dr House wanted to rule out thyroid as well. So he had a nurse take some of my blood. Now I am terrified of needles. Seriously terrified. I won't scream or faint or anything but I swear my heart stops beating. Anyway, the nurse couldn't locate a vein in my left arm so it was decided that my right arm will do. Then I wondered why she kept waiting. Finally I heard her talking on the phone. Apparently she's not allowed to take blood without being supervised!

WTF! I almost had a heart attack. At that moment I was thinking, this is how I'm going to die. Eye patient killed by student nurse.

But I never raised any objections. I'm really meek when it comes to dealing with doctors and nurses and hospitals in general. Anyway an older nurse came in and she was very nice and kept me calm and told jokes. She held and stroked my arm. Suddenly I heard the older nurse call out sharply:

That's enough!

Gosh, don't they teach the nurses how much blood to take? The student nurse did a very good job really other than not knowing when to stop. I did not bruise at all and I'm someone who bruises easily.

Well, that's pretty much it. If the eye cream works, I'll see results within 2 weeks. Otherwise, I'll have to do the elimination route. I'm not going to freak out over the worse case scenarios and take it one step at a time.

I feel very positive and already last night I had the best sleep in a while. I was able to close my eyes and not feel there's a golf ball in my eye. The eye cream really made a difference. A few years ago, I had something similar with my eyes but I had treatment at a different clinic. Same thing. Eyes shat to hell and after weeks and weeks of anti biotics, it was finally discovered that I had an eye lash GROWING inside my eyelid. Once the eyelash was plucked out, I immediately felt better. Right now with my eyelids inflamed, it's not possible to see so deep inside my eyelids. Just have to wait and see. Today I feel 25% better and that's progress! I also have this urge to sew something and with my VivoCity date coming soon, it's best I get on with it.

Oh, one other piece of good news. I went without my allergy meds for a week and survived. It seems masks during the day and not using the air conditioner when I sleep makes a huge difference. I'm able to go back on my allergy meds but I think I won't rely on them so much now. Being able to breathe on my own without medication is such a great feeling!

Later alligator.