Yesterday morning I felt like there was something in my eye but I couldnt see anything in it and no matter how many eyedrops I put in it, nothing helped. Nobody at work had a magnifying mirror so that I could get a better look at it, and the one friend/coworker who was willing to look in my eye said that my eyelid was a little red and swollen and it looked like I was probably getting a sty. I've had a sty before and it wasnt scratchy, it was tender and swollen. By the time I got home it felt like something was scratching my eye, so I checked it out once I was able to get up close to a big mirror with good lighting. I had an ingrown eyelash. But, it's not just a regular ingrown eyelash, but one that went through inner rim of my upper eyelid, under the skin, coming out on the INSIDE of my eyelid, scratching my eye everytime I blinked. Since it was so close to my eyeball, this wasnt something I wanted to try to tweeze myself.
So, being the mature 28 year old woman that I am, I called my mommy.
My rationalization in calling my mom being that she is a Medical Assistant and is constantly poking people with needles and crap like that. She came over and I told her what the situation was, and of course she didn't believe me and starts wiping a Q-Tip along the inner rim of my eyelid, thinking that the lash is just bent up underneath the lid and that she's going to be able to wipe it off. During this process I repeatedly told her "Mom, it's UNDER the skin, you're not going to be able to wipe it off with a Q-Tip." After a couple of minutes she says "OH, how WEIRD. It really is under the skin. yeah, I'm not going to be able to just wipe this off." And since so little of the lash was coming out on the underneath she didn't feel comfortable trying to get it out.
Next step... Urgent Care. Mom and I decide that Saturday, today, she'll take me to urgent care in case they have to cut into my eyelid and possibly patch it and am not able to drive myself home. First, I wake up and theres some goopy stuff in my eye. Not a good sign.
We get to urgent care and the triage nurse looks at my eyelid. He says "WEIRD, its really under the skin. I want to see what the Dr. does." Of course, since I'm with my mommy I get put into a pediatric room where the only reading material is Green Eggs and Ham. I couldn't talk mommy into reading me a story though. After a few minutes the doctor comes in, asks me why I'm there and I tell him about my eye.
Then he gives me a lecture about the ills of smoking.
Finally he looks at my eye and says, stop me if you've heard this before....
"Oh, how WEIRD. It really IS under the skin."
After he looks at it again he says "Yeah, I'm not going to touch that. I'll give you a referral to an opthamologist and someone will call you by Tuesday" I ask if he can give me some numbing drops for my eye since its so annoying, his response was "No, sometimes pain is your friend. It lets you know if it may be getting infected or something." Pain is my friend? Sadistic bastard. I felt like saying "No, pain MEDS are my friend" but I doubted that my humor would be appreciated.
So, I go home thinking that I'll have to wait until probably Wednesday at the earliest before anything can be done about the damned eyelash in my eye.
However, as the day wears on the scratching sensation goes away. Now it feels like everytime I blink something is CUTTING into my eye, and I decide to brave the emergency room. With mommy.
We go to Sutter Roseville and I sign in. After about 20 minutes I'm called in to triage. The triage nurse says that it won't take very long since they don't need to put me in a room or bed or anything like that, but I'm doubtful. Emergency rooms are NEVER quick. Especially ones that are level one trauma centers like Sutter Roseville.
So, I go back out and register and wait for about another 30 minutes and am called back in where I meet the wonderful Dr. Darilyn Campbell-Falck. She looks at my eye and says "I can see how that would be really annoying." she puts some lidocaine drops in my eye, gets some really small forceps, a bright light, and tries to pull the lash out. It's not budging. My favorite comment of hers? "I wish I had the tweezers I use on my eyebrows at home."
She finds a different pair of forceps and pulls the lash out then gives me a prescription for some antibiotic drops since my eye itself has been scratched some and she wants to prevent it from becoming infected. Total time spent in the emergency room? Just an hour and a half.
I LOVE YOU SUTTER ROSEVILLE!!!
I LOVE YOU DR CAMPBELL-FALCK!!!
Then I went to the new Joann Super Store in Roseville and bought yarn.
Projects will be posted once I get off my lazy arse and go get a new usb cord for my digital camera.
