Did you ever go to bed looking perfectly normal and wake up looking like a cast member of The Walking Dead?
No? How nice for you. I went to bed on a Friday night looking like I always look. Slept well. Woke up to Peaches, one of our dogs, sitting on my chest and hitting me in the face with her paw.
I moved her off me, rolled out of bed, and headed for the bathroom. As I finished my business and washed my hands, I happened to glance up at the mirror and I literally almost passed out.
My left eye was blood-red. The entire white part (sclera) of my eye was red (actually, it was more like burgundy).
And it was badly swollen. I yelled for my husband George. He came running in and said, and I quote, “What the he&% is that?”
That utterance was accompanied by a distinct look of absolute horror. I’ve seen various horrified expressions on my husband’s face in our 38 years of marriage (usually when looking at our credit card statement), but never one quite like this.
‘After the pain went away and the eye became numb, I asked the doctor if I had punched him.’
Being the amateur Doctor of Everything that I am, I immediately came up with several diagnoses:
1) I was dying, 2) I was dying, and 3) I was dying. Any minute now. When I calmed down, I told George that we had to go to the ER. He said, “Now?” I said, “When I finish my coffee.”
The reason for the delay was that the eye did not hurt one bit. It was not actively bleeding, my eyesight was normal, and I had no headache. Plus I needed time to Google my symptoms.
So after extensive reading about red eyes, I came up with a temporary diagnosis: subconjunctival hemorrhage. The word hemorrhage was not encouraging, but since I could see and I didn’t have blood dripping from my eye like a character in a Halloween haunted house, I was relatively calm.
I finished my coffee, put on a pair of sunglasses and off we went. Luckily, I was seen right away by the Capital Health Hopewell ER triage nurse, who fortunately had an excellent sense of humor.
When she asked me what I was there for, I took my sunglasses off and asked, “Notice anything unusual about me?” She replied, “A little early for Halloween, aren’t you?”
She took us back to an exam room. The doctor, who was about 13 years old, examined my eye and told me he was going to put eye drops in my eye that would numb it and dilate the pupils.
He forgot to mention, however, that said drops were going to burn like a blowtorch. I yelled and the doctor then told me that the drops may burn a little.
After the pain went away and the eye became numb, I asked the doctor if I had punched him. (I had a vague memory of taking a swing at him when he put those drops in). He informed me that, yes, I tried to punch him but he ducked. Good reflexes, that kid.
Anyway, he confirmed what Google had told me: subconjunctival hemorrhage, most likely caused by Peaches scratching my eye during her wake-up call.
Nothing to be done for it, except avoid eye strain, don’t rub it, watch light sensitivity, and rest. No exertion. He also said that it could take up to three weeks for the blood to reabsorb. Great.
I texted our sons on the way home, telling them the diagnosis and that I was given eye patches. Donnie, our youngest, immediately began quoting the Pirates of the Caribbean movies to me. Georgie was in the middle of coaching a soccer game but expressed horror at the selfie I sent him.
When we got home, I put a patch on and my sunglasses over it and sat propped up on our bed with a bunch of pillows. I took another selfie and noticed that I bore a strong resemblance to Roy Orbison.
The eye is still red. Not swollen anymore, but still red nonetheless. There is an upside to this whole story: the red of the sclera really brings out the blue of my eyes.
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