My Eyes

As I mentioned in my last posting, I currently have keratitis, infection of the cornea. It is incredibly painful, causing my eyes to tear, turn red and be incredibly sensitive to light. What the doctor thinks happened is that, during the dust storm from China three weeks ago (when I was in Kending with my family), something got into my eyes and became minorly irritated. By the end of the weekend, my eyes were fairly bloodshot but not in pain, so I blamed it on sleep deprivation (I had gotten very little sleep while my family was here). The next two days, my eyes were tired and easily irritated. I remember rubbing my eyes a lot and thinking that the air had dried out my contacts. Tuesday night, I was working at my computer and grading papers, when I started tearing up in earnest. My eyes had been hurting since dinner, so I took out my contacts, put on my glasses and tried to work again. Now my eyes started crying in earnest. Within an hour, I could not even see anything, so I decided to give up and go to bed. I honestly just thought my eyes were tired and needed rest.

However, the next morning, I woke up early for taiqi and could not see a single thing. I could hardly open my eyes, they hurt so badly. I stumbled into the bathroom, took a shower, got dressed and then stood in the middle of the hallway wondering what to do. I still could not see, could not stop crying and any light was incredibly painful. My biggest concern was how to ride my scooter into work. At this point, Kristin came out of her room, took one look at me, and told me I was not allowed to go into school.

I went back to bed for a few hours, and then Fonda came to take me to the hospital. Most painful car ride of my life. Even with sunglasses and covering my eyes, the slightest amount of light hurt terribly. The doctor told me that I had keratitis, and that there were now holes in my cornea. Keratitis, when not caught promptly, can result in cornea erosion and eventual loss of the eye! He told me to not wear contacts for 2-4 weeks, and gave me three types of antibiotics to put into my eyes multiple times a day.

That was two weeks ago, and my eyes are still red and still sore. I have been to three different eye doctors, been prescribed seven different eye drops and eye creams, and nothing! The worst part is that people keep coming up to me with horrified expressions, asking what is wrong with my eyes and do I know that they are completely red and bloodshot? Why no! Thank you for telling me. I had no idea... YES, my eyes are red. YES, I have a cornea infection. NO, I did not get plastic surgery on my eyes (a Taiwanese person asked me this...).

One good thing to come out of this all is that I got new glasses. I have always hated wearing glasses (still do), but now that I have to wear them every day, I figured I ought to at least get trendy, cute ones. Funny story, second day of me wearing glasses, Fonda asks me if I would like to buy new ones. Puzzled, I say, "No - do you think I should?" Fonda, "Well, yours are crooked..." Haha I love Fonda. :) Yes, I have had my old ones since high school, and they are neither stylish nor straight nor the proper prescription. All excellent reasons to get new glasses. Fonda took me out to an eye glasses store in Xin Jue Zhang, staffed by many good-looking Asian men, and got me fitted out with new, classy, black plastic frames. My mother might be appalled - she has never liked black frames on blonds... But I took a vote in the shop and had the unanimous support of all of the good-looking Asian men.

Despite my new frames, I still hate glasses and deeply hope that my eyes will be returned to normal again soon.