A Tear, A Tear

“I think it is viral conjunctivitis,” I announced simply and smugly to my friend and opthamalogist this afternoon.
I had checked it up on the Net (rather, self-diagnosed myself) before I headed over to him, out of frustration more than anything else.
He laughed.
“People are getting dengue fever and aiyoh, you get conjunctivitis?”
I nodded. After all, my right eye was itchy and red, and teared like hell this morning. Approximately five hours before, I was ready to start my car and go for a friend’s shop launching (she’s just gone from homebased to being a retailer). And I wasn’t going to miss that for the world. Except for a tiny problem which cropped up as I sat in the car and stared into the bright morning sunlight, I started to tear like hell. Tear in ONE eye!
My right eye kept closing out the bright morning rays of the sun, and kept on tearing. If it weren’t painful, it would be downright funny. Who’d ever heard of tear ducts working overtime on one eye?
This got me worried. Looked into the mirror and saw right eye exceptionally red. And I hadn’t even rubbed it yet!
So there it was. First thought. Oh dear. Conjunctivitis! I wasn’t going to go around meeting people with one red eye, ya? Anyway, I myself do not like touching people who have red, teary eyes. And my right eye did throb. Like someone poked my eye with a blunt object. Like a speck of sand somewhere.
Cancelled it then and there. Left a voicemail on her phone coz I knew she would be too busy to pick up her phone.
Went home, took out contact lenses and washed my eyes out with water. Rested. Also surfed for some sort of information or validation that I was having some rare form of conjunctivitis and not going the way of three nursery rhyme rodents.
The thing I like about my friend/opthalmalogist is that he calms me. He chuckles and says things every person with eye problems wants to hear.
“Aiya, nothing serious lah. Just a tear on your cornea.”
Huh? Tear on my cornea? So that was the diagnosis. Not conjunctivitis. Now, tear sounded more ominous than bacteria jumping around in my eye.
Apparently, it happens. Especially to contact lens’ wearers. Contact lenses might have a speck of dust or our fingernails might be too long, and when we rub our eyes, or remove our lenses, the cornea of our eyes can get scratched.
And I saw that tear on my cornea too. He scanned my eye and produced, on the computer screen, a photograph of my eye, showing the tiniest cut on my cornea.
So what does one do with a corneal cut?
No contact lenses for two days. Application of this prescription eye drop called Chloramphenicol every two hours until the redness clears. And to go back and have a final check on Monday to see if everything is okay.
It’s not so much the pain or tearing which I am frustrated about really. It’s more of an inconvenience of wearing glasses, not being able to stare at my laptop for long and the sheer irritation of my own clumsiness for scratching and tearing my own cornea. Jeez!
PS. Nic thought it would be more urm…graphical to show the photo of my cornea but I really didn’t want to spoil your appetite for dinner (although I believe that my opthalmalogist friend might have heartily agreed to save the photo and email it to me!)