Thursday, November 05, 2009

She said you're like a disease without any cure

I went to the doctor today. My right eye has been acting funny lately, messing up my worldview a bit--being the freckliest girl in the world, it is unsurprising that I would have a tiny mole on my lash line, rubbing up against my eyeball and making me inappropriately teary, but that doesn't make it less uncomfortable. It's just another day in the life of the temperamentally-skinned. Thanks, genetic legacy!

Luckily, I have Kaiser health care, the kind where I call the advice nurse at 9:30 and they ask if I'd rather have the 10:15 or the 1:30 same-day appointment. I show up and flaunt my eyelid to my GP and to the opthalmologist's assistant; flaky-mascara lecture and eyeball-numbing glaucoma test notwithstanding, we all seem to agree: as terrifying as the intersection of opthalmology and dermatology sounds, minor surgery may be the way to go, here. Soon, the opthalmologist himself shows up. He looks around, resists the urge to flip my eyelids inside out like a junior-high boy, and shines a few lights in my eyes. He hmmmmms to himself. He looks at me.

"Well," he says, "We're going to hold off on the mole. At least until the conjunctivitis clears up."

Let me translate that.

PINKEYE.

I am twenty-nine years old, and I HAVE PINKEYE.

This is actually not that surprising; it seems like, in this world, you're either a pinkeye person or you aren't, and I most definitely am. I was that kid in preschool who practically bathed in eyedrops (but never got good at taking them--even now, I am a reluctant eye-dropper on the very best of days). For whatever reason, I'm conjunctivitis-friendly. It's nice to know I'm accommodating to all, don't you think?

In my (extensive) pinkeye experience, this'll all blow over. I've got eyedrops and ointment(ultra-thick eyedrops: AWESOME, UNIVERSE) and a check-up appointment for Monday; even going without my contacts seems to be keeping the ick at bay. Until then, I'm just trying not to start a Swine Eye epidemic. That would be embarrassing.

5 comments:

Xerxes said...

Liz,

Next you will need your tonsils out and then come down with chicken pox!

Liz said...

X, you don't even want to KNOW about me and the chicken pox! (Okay, so, I actually thought I was immune--as a kid, all my friends had them, my BROTHER had them, and nothing. Freshman year of college, I come back from Christmas break...and BAM. Chicken pox! I got them from a friend's son, whom I never even came in contact with. The school quarantined me for a week. AWESOME.)

bilunabirotunda said...

Sorry about the eye problems! "Pinkeye," yeah, if that's what you want to call your little zombie problem, it's ok by me.... (You have seen that South Park, right?)

Actually we had a little pinkeye issue on Treasure Island: Mike H was really sick, and when we finally took him to the doctor, they're like, congratulations! Not only do you have bronchitis, but pinkeye as well! Oy.

The Happiness Project author, Gretchen Rubin, has it now too. So you is popular!

Re chicken pox: Erik escaped it but had SHINGLES as a young adult. Which sounds like the worst thing ever. Get him to tell you about it sometime.

Anonymous said...
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Xerxes said...

Don't you love Blog SPAM!