This Shouldn't Hurt - You've Been Through Worse

First, let me say that I have a great optometrist office. In case you don't follow me on facebook, or if I haven't talked to you in a few days, you may not know that I am currently suffering an eye injury. Nothing too awful (although it sure felt that way Sunday night and all day yesterday). I have a corneal abrasion. These can be serious, but thankfully mine is located out of my field of vision so as long as I follow doctor's orders it shouldn't be more than just a healing process now.

I was outside a lot this weekend and apparently got something on/in my contact lens. (I hate the outdoors, and now I am reminded why.) My eyes were itchy when I took them out Sunday evening, but I really thought just getting the contacts out would improve them. It helped one eye - it hurt the other. As soon as the contact was out of my left eye, immense/excruciating pain began. I spent the evening with a series of compresses on my eye, and at one point debated if I should make Andre take me to the ER. I suffered through til morning and then called the 24 hour hotline at my optometrist's office. The doctor on call was nice enough to meet me at 7 a.m. to see what was going on in my eye. He confirmed that I did have a "corneal abrasion" a.k.a. tear to my  cornea. He medicated my eye and gave me some prescriptions for treatment and told me to come back today. Apparently corneal abrasions can be serious and they want to watch me pretty regularly to make sure no infection sets in.

So, today I go in and am being screened by the murse (yes, I mean murse, it was a man nurse - are they called nurses or assistants in an optometrist office?). Well, my murse is a nice guy. He's playing with child #3 and asking me how many kids I have, etc. He goes to put the dilating drops in my eye and says, "This shouldn't hurt. You've been through worse."

hmm.... it doesn't hurt, and having worn glasses/contacts since 5th grade I really am not afraid of anything going near my eye, but I though his comment was odd. Then he goes on to say "I mean, with three kids, you've been poked/prodded enough that a little dilation shouldn't be a big deal."

he he he... I thought of all kinds of dilation quips I could have made, but decided I'd just say them in my head instead of out loud. I hope I get the murse when I go back next week - he made my doomed vision a much more pleasant experience.