Pain In The Eye

In December, Harvey, Andrew and I were sleeping by my in-laws for a few nights because the heat wasn't working in our apartment. On one of those nights, Andrew was in a fussy mood so I picked him and tried to cuddle him close. As soon as I did that, Andrew began thrashing his arms around and he ended up scratching me in my left eye. I quickly put him into the pack and play since the pain was so unbearable and called Harvey, who was taking a shower. My eye hurt so much and I was afraid to open it. Andrew immediately settled down (he is such a good baby). My mother-in-law, who is a maternity nurse, came and rinsed my eye out with saline. A few hours later my eye was feeling a little better and I could even open it for a little while. This happened on a Saturday night and by the time I woke up on Sunday, my eye was much better. I decided that I would go to the ophthalmologist on Monday just to make sure that everything was okay.

The ophthalmologist said that I had a corneal abrasion but that my eye had already healed and everything was fine. About 2 weeks later the same eye started to bother me. It began a little at a time and gradually got worse to the point that every time that I opened my eyes it would hurt me. I was literally scared to open my eyes in the mornings. I decided that I needed another visit to the ophthalmologist. Harvey drove me the next day and the doctor said that I had what is called a recurring corneal abrasion. Basically every morning when I opened my eyes my eyelid was pulling off the new cells that had healed - so it was getting scratched over and over. The new cells are not as strong as the old ones and do not adhere as well to the layer underneath so they are damaged quicker. It can take anywhere from 6 months to a year for these cells to get stronger and for some people they never adhere well anymore. The doctor did a few things - he put cream into my eye and patched it (this is not something that eye doctors do often anymore but he wanted to make sure that I didn't open my eye at all that day), gave me moisturizing drops and told me to buy a moisturizing ointment for bedtime. I was only supposed to take the patch off before I went to bed and to put the ointment into my eye at that time. He said that I should use the ointment every night for at least 3 weeks. This would prevent my eye from drying out and my lid from pulling off the cells over and over again. I followed his advice but was nervous to stop the ointment since every once in a while my eye bothered me a little bit. I got better at putting in the ointment and continued doing this until about last week. That is where my new story begins.

Last Thursday, when I came home from work I decided to check the mailbox. As I was leafing through the meal I did a very klutzy thing - I scratched the same eye with an envelope. The pain was worse than last time (I guess because not only did I have a new wound but I opened the old wound) and I immediately went into my apartment , laid down and kept my eye closed. I figured that this would help the healing. By later that night the pain had not lessened even with my taking two Tylenol. My husband had already called my eye dr. (who of course was closed by then) and would be closed on Friday. I called up a close friend, Roy (who works in a volunteer ambulance service) and he came over to look at my eye. It was swollen and hurt a lot by then so Roy decided to take me to the emergency room immediately to make sure that it hadn't gotten infected. Roy took me (Harvey stayed home with sleeping Andrew) with his lights and sirens (I didn't know this until later since he had blindfolded me in order to not irritate the eye further). The blindfolded actually hurt my bad eye when it rubbed it against it so I held it away from my eye but still kept both eyes closed. When we got there Roy brought me a wheelchair (since I couldn't open my eyes to see where to walk) and helped me to check in. We waited about an hour - which wasn't bad since we thought that we would be waiting for like 3 hours until a doctor came to see me. The doctor could not get my eye open so he put in these numbing drops (they stung for a few seconds and then there was no pain at all - until it wore off an hour later). Once they were able to get my eye open, they checked and there was no infection - yay - just a scratch which should heal by itself but said that I should follow up with my ophthalmologist within 24-48 hours. They gave me antibiotic drops (2 drops four times a day) until I could see my doctor to make sure that no infection started, a prescription for percaset for the pain (I do not know how to spell that) and gave me a tetanus shot since I couldn't remember when I had gotten one last. Roy then took me to fill my prescription (to two places since the first place did not have it) and then took me home. Thanks Roy!!

Update - By Friday night I could finally stand to put ice on my eye and by Saturday afternoon I could finally open my eye. I went to the eye doctor today and he said that once again everything is healing nicely and it should stop bothering me within a few days. I need to continue using the ointment at night to prevent re-occurrences. My eye still bothers me a little but I know that I need to give it some more time to heal since it was a nasty scratch and an opening of an old wound. So that was my weekend - how was yours?