Eye Update. Because If I Have To Suffer, You Have To Suffer With Me.

I ended up going home early last night. Which I feel pretty bad about; it seems as if circumstances have been conspiring mightily to eat into our productivity lately. People are sick, people are on vacation... Earlier in the week, the power was out for something like five hours and nobody could do anything. And later in the month we're going to be shut down for a week while they replace the A/C. Eek. But the pain was getting really, well, painful, and the fluorescent lights weren't doing kind things for me, either.

That's a new development as of yesterday, by the way, that light-sensitivity. I had it for a while right after the original accident, but it was gone by the time the patch came off. Welcome back, photophobia, old friend! At least the symptom's got a cool name. "Photophobia" makes me sound vaguely vampiric or something.

Anyway. I came home, got a few hours of sleep, then got up and called the optometrist's office... And got his answering machine, because he's not in on Thursdays. Aargh! Pardon me while I distract myself from the pain in my eye by banging my head.

I briefly considered going to the regular doctor, instead -- the one I usually go to does take walk-ins -- but I think I'm probably better off waiting for the eye doctor. There is not, as I understand it, any permanent damage being done to my eye, just the same temporary damage being done over and over again. So it's just a question of enduring the unpleasantness... Which I am mostly able to do by, say, imagining myself lying on a battlefield suffering the excruciating pain of broken bones and ripped-out intestines, and thinking how happy I'd be going from that condition to just having an ouchy eye. Hey, don't knock it. It works.

The thing that's really worrying me right now is how the heck I'm going to coordinate my need for medical care with my need for sleep. I've had about 5 hours of sleep today, from 5-10 AM. I'm scheduled to work tonight from midnight to 8 AM, the eye doctor's office opens at 9 AM, and I have no idea if they'll even be able to fit me in tomorrow, but if they do it'll be some time during the day and I'm probably not going to have a lot of choice as to when. Even if I leave work early again, I'm not going to have time to get much sleep, and if I work the full shift and stay awake to call the eye doctor at 9:00, I'm probably going to be too incoherent to speak.

I suppose the sensible thing to do would be to call in sick, go to bed at midnight, and be up to call at 9:00. But I feel terribly guilty about the thought of doing that, especially if it turns out I can't get in to have it looked at tomorrow, anyway. Aaargh! Why must life be so full of decisions?

Also, I am worried that the next step in the process, if the ointment's not helping, is going to be a contact lens. From what I've read, they'll sometimes give you a soft contact to act as a "bandage" for the eye. And, oh, man... There are reasons why I'm still wearing glasses, you know. Eye drops and ointments are bad enough, but the thought of touching a lens to my eye makes me want to go all fetal-position.

Gaaah. I'm such a gigantic wussy baby. I hate it.