Corneal Abrasion

A week or so before the parents visited, I was playing with my kids and Emma grabbed my glasses off my face and then hit me in the eye, scratching my cornea. At first I thought it was just a poke in the eye, no big deal. But the pain persisted and by 8 o'clock it had become really intolerable.

I called my neighbor Eric and asked if he would dive me to one of those "Doc in a Box" places so they could look at it and see what was up. I went to the Fair Oaks walk-In clinic and they saw me in a few short minutes. The Doctor did identify that my was hurt so he gave me an eye drop that immediately numbed the eye - instant relief! Searing pain and within ten seconds, all good! It was unbelievable.

At that point I could open my eye and he could take a look. He couldn't get the violet light to work after he put the UV dye in so he just gave me some salve and said it would heal on its own.

Fast forward to three hours later and the numbing drop wore off. Really fast. Within ten minutes, I was once again in searing pain, awoken out of a dead sleep. I called my neighbor again and this time we went to the Emergency Room at Fair Oaks hospital. They were good because they got me an ice pack to put around my eye and got me a room (a bed with the curtains that is semi private) in a few minutes. The doctor came in and got me another numbing drop, which was sooo great. I can't explain to you how the pain felt, it was almost unbearable.

The doctors name was Dr. Doug Smith and he was really nice. He brought me back to the eye care room and put the dye in my eye and his UV light thing worked, unlike at the Doc-In-A-Box place, which was crucial because he was able to actually diagnose what was wrong. A corneal abrasion.

Really, really painful and it does have to heal on its own but you are going to need something to take the edge off the pain. This is key and is what the Doc-In-A-Box place missed.

A few days later I went to see an Opthalmologist and he said the pain is equivalent to child birth in terms of pain, to which my wife expressed some skepticism. The Opt Doc said he asked women who had been through both and they said the corneal abrasion was worse because the pain was unrelenting and childbirth was bad but you knew the end was coming so you knew that would pass.

I spent the next few days living the life of a drug addict; sleeping all day under the effects of Oxycodone. That stuff will screw you up. I was a mess. I couldn't form words in some cases and was a little edgy. That is no life I want to live so as soon as I could switch over to Advil and Tylenol I did it and left the rest of those pills in the bottle. I will never become a pill addict because I recognize wat it does to me that early during usage and want to avoid that.

 

I've never had my eye dilated for a few days but apparently there are drops for just that. The Opt Doc gave me some to speed the healing process and I looked funny (funnier than usual) for a few days.