You all know how I LOVE to dig in the dirt, drink in the fragrance of the good earth, feel it between my fingers ~ and for all of the years I've been gardening nothing bad has happened as a result. Until Friday afternoon. I had a close encounter with an almost bad time Thursday when I was digging and a bug flew right into my mouth (!) and I very nearly swallowed it but didn't ... Friday was a beautiful day here in Grand Rapids: blue sky, gentle breeze, cool temperature. I was out digging behind the house, near the hottub where abundant weeds had grown all through the nice ground cover (that I do not know the name of) we have out there. I was clearing the area of weeds, as well as cutting back the ground cover, as it was really overgrowing its boundaries right into the grass! I stopped for a minute to gaze around the yard and assess where my next digging project was going to be and at that exact second, something flew into my eye ~ one of those weed/seed things that are all over the place this time of year. It didn't fly into the eye that is my "bad" eye, but flew into the one I can actually see out of. I took my muddy work gloves off and used a clean hand to try and remove whatever it was from my eye ~ to no avail. My eye was a little bit annoyed, but I wasn't finished weeding this area, so I continued working until the job was done! I went into the house to just lay down for 20 minutes or so, but I carelessly continued to rub on my eye the whole time thinking I could rub this little weed/seed away! When I got up and looked in the mirror, my eye was puffy and red all the way up beyond my eyebrow, as well as down to the side of my nose. Great. I needed to get ready to go to a baby shower, so I put some cold compresses on my ghastly looking face for about 10 minutes, applied some make-up and went to the shower.
I returned home from the shower at about 8:30. My eye felt nasty, but I didn't want to mess around with it anymore, so I went to bed by about 10:00. When I woke up at three in the morning, I could hardly open that eye. I looked at myself in the mirror and honestly! It looked like someone punched me hard in the eye. The swelling was pretty grotesque and my whole face was lopsided. Once it was actually really morning, I called my doctor's office and they said they could see me. I went in, the doctor did a lot of probing around in my eye, took an instrument and pulled my eyelid around and turned it inside-out (gross!) and found the little seedling way back behind my upper eyelid and removed it! He looked at it under a magnifying glass and told me it had little prongs on it! Whew. I thought my misery was over until he said he thought he should check the eye further for cornea damage or infection. Thankfully, there was no scratch on my cornea ... but he seemed pretty convinced of infection, which he attributed to my rather careless and aggressive eye rubbing. He prescribed a Prednisone dospak and an anointment that was unbelievably expensive for a teensy tiny tube ... I made the Pharmacist call the doctor back and prescribe something a bit more reasonable for my meager budget. I read all of the possible side-effects of using Prednisone (all of them very scary) and started my medication regimen immediately.
Out of the TONS of side-effects listed for Prednisone use, I only ended up with the severe headache, joint-muscle-and-bone pain ... not too terrible for the lengthy and life-threatening list on the medication sheet! But having broken my tail bone twice in my life, I am having pain there in the extreme right now and feel like a victim of a train wreck (are you crying for me yet?) The prognosis is good: I will live.
My eye is doing better today. I wore sunglasses to church and explained to all of my three-year-olds (when asked WHY I was wearing sunglasses at church!) that I had a bad "owie" in my eye. They were very sympathetic (as only three-year-olds can be). They promptly showed me each and every "owie" on their small bodies and received MUCH empathy from their teacher.
End of sad story.
5 comments:
OW! How could anybody NOT have sympathy for an eye injury? (And I love the bit about the kids...they sure do have their own way of entering into your sorrows!)
I am glad the seed didn't do any more damage that it did, and will be praying it feels better soon.
ALSO...an expensive eye ointment is worth it's weight in gold if the alternative is eye damage. But I'm glad there was an alternative for you.
Wow! It doesn't sound like you've had a very nice gardening experience. I'm sympathizing! Please don't get any more projectiles in any body parts!
I am so sorry mom! Ouch! Is your eye feeling better today? I am so glad that your 3 year olds gave you lots of sympathy and that there was a cheaper alternative. Side effects can be so nasty- glad to hear that they sounded minimal compared to the rest of the list. Hope you feel better soon!
Carol, what can I say? I hurt for you!! Isn't that a freaky thing to happen? I actually hate working in the dirt just because of the bugs - I never thought of something getting into my eye. I was interested to hear of the side effects of that medicine. I always laugh at the ones advertised on television when they list all of the side effects that are possible. I always think why would people even want to use that medicine? I guess sometimes there just isn't much choice as in your experience. Hope you feel much better this week and that you want to garden again soon. Maybe you should wear sunglasses or something protective over your eyes from now on. Also don't talk or sing or breathe with your mouth open - that bug could have been bad also! Love you! :)
To you four very kind sympathizers: My eye is very much better this morning and is no longer a weird bulgy shape! Extra-strength Tylenol is thankfully managing the side-effects of the Prednisone and keeping them to a minimum, and I plan to put sunglasses on and get back in the dirt this afternoon. All is well! And thank you all for your kind words, the very best medicine ever! :)
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