Last week, I went to get my hair cut. When I came out of the salon, it felt like a bee or something stung me in the eye. Or maybe a piece of hair from my cut got in my eye and was stuck. I figured since it was me, it was a bug with a vendetta. I drove home kind of squinty and then spent the next few hours squirting every type of solution my husband had in his medicine cabinet for his contact lenses in my eye trying to get whatever it was out. My eye was continuing to swell, turn red, and I could not keep it open. Any amount of light was making it worse. So naturally, I took some photos and texted them to my sister in a time zone 3 hours away. If you are not sure why I did this, this is how Jewish people diagnose illnesses. We consult our family members first, take a poll on what disease we think we are dying of, then decide when we should go to a doctor. We decided I should go to the eye doctor in the morning if whatever was stuck in my eye did not come out by then. Also, we relived every moment from our childhood hoping the tears would flush out the intruder. No such luck.
The first optometrist I went to was lovely. He saw me right away and did some gross tests with dye in my eye and told me the problem was not caused by a bee, spider, or a hair cut. Oh the luck! He determined my problem was too serious for him to treat and I'd need to see a specialist right away. While he was calling his buddy the specialist, I was tweeting that I was about to be blind and was hoping they'd give me a cool eye patch. I went to see the specialist, though I don't have any memory of how I actually drove there with one eye covered and full of vegetable dye. But, whatever. What a do remember is there is a cool lobby at the specialist's office that I intend to sneak in for a photo shoot next week. I hope there are no security cameras. After more gross and painful tests, the specialist who has no sense of humor at all tells me I have Iritis, a condition that affects the iris where the iris becomes inflammed. It's controlled with steroids, dilating drops, and DARK GLASSES. What? No eye patch? The dilating drops definitely help the excruciating pain, but it's making it very hard for me to see clearly anything not right in front of me. If I am not wearing sunglasses most of the time, it gives me a really weird headache. Having one eye dilated and the other not, is freaky looking, too. On the bright side, I love sunglasses! On the down side, now I can't make jokes about Bono always wearing sunglasses inside. Poor Bono! Well, not really poor-poor. I don't think he got his extra pair of glasses at Target like I did.
