Excuses?? Yeah, I got 'em!

So, I started this wonderful BLOG to track my progress cause according to yesterday's post, "Cathy made me do it" is all well and good to say, but, ya know, no one can really make you do anything you don't want to, not even yourself. Cause the more your are forced to do something, the more excuses your sub-conscious finds for you to not to have to do do them.

That being said...I REALLY really do have a good excuse why I'm not meeting my goals!
DISCLAIMER: This post might not be for the squeamish

My eyeball hurts!

In 2001 I had LASIK on both eyes and all was right with the world. But due to who knows what...getting old...falling off horses...whatever, the vision in the left eye had regressed to the point I was running around all squinty eyed. So back at the beginning of the year I had a vision correction enhancement on my eye. Since then it has been an ongoing struggle to get the dang thing to heal properly.
Normally after LASIK you do get some cell growth that occurs and covers the flap. The eye never heals like we associate with a cut, but the cell growth does cover the flap. Apparently my eyeball likes to grow rogue cells that prefer to creep under the flap and keep distorting my vision. Swell.
You know those nifty vision charts you have to read? Well did you know that the technicians didn't find it humorous when they asked me to say the letters of the smallest line I could read and I rattle off things like... Omega, Zed, Alpha, Theta...hey when did these things go Greek? Because I was seeing everything in hieroglyphics and double images out of that eye. Driving was like a big party adventure! Tail lights looked like I was on a highway full of red Jack-O-Lantern eyes staring at me, and headlights coming at me like huge white candles. Obviously something was not quite right here....obviously.
So I've had 2 sessions of going in removing the rogue cells, putting a contact type lens over the flap to press it down, nothing worked. They kept coming back. Now the Dr decides it's time to get serious, on May 29 they put in stitches. Stitches!, In My Eyeball!!! Ten of them! Owie Owie Owie. This is when the fun really began.
Actually, the first week really wasn't all that bad. Some mild discomfort, but I had this nice lovely clear contact lens "band-aid" over the stitches so the eyelid and eyeball didn't interact with each other. Then it happened....at the one week check-up the "band-aid" came out. owe Dr. was very happy with how the eye was healing, everything looking good, no sign of rogue cells, and he recommended...yes... I HAD A CHOICE HERE... to not put another "band-aid" in. He told me there would be some discomfort (yeah...owie...eye was already watering like crazy and scratchy feeling) that would go away as the eyelid adjusted to the feel of the stitches. Like the trusting dork I am I said OK...leave it out. WHAT was I thinking??!!??
Normally I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. I think most horse people do...sort of comes with the territory. But OMG, Owie owie owie! And there was no getting away from it! By that night I could not keep my eye open, it was tearing non-stop, and blinking was like rubbing sandpaper across my poor eyeball. I swear I could feel every stitch go down and up with every blink, pulling on my poor eyeball. I took about a thousand ibuprofen for the headache and dull throbbing ache in, around, and behind the eye, put in my drops and went to bed hoping for the best. Next morning, Friday, I woke up in Hell!
I can no longer open the left eye, when I do finally pry it open to put drops in OWIE...stings Owe, make it stop.... no such luck...tears streaming non-stop. Call the Dr. OWIE HELP OWIE HURTS CAN'T SEE. At least I think I said something that sounded like that, either way they got the jest of what I was trying to communicate. Now I have to drive to the Dr. office, in the pouring rain, during rush hour traffic, with tears streaming down my face; because of course the Right Eye, not wanting to be left out of the fun, and has now started streaming tears too!
Get to the Dr. he mercifully puts in numbing drops...Aaaahhhh...relief at last. Checks out the eye and says hmmm the surface has some slight abrasions. Ya think? Thank God he puts another "band-aid" in my eye. I am sent home with more drops and new instructions with the obligatory now call if you experience, pain, redness or changes in your vision and I'm also told they'd see me when the stitches are scheduled to be removed. I go along my merry way, a happy camper with my numb eye, "band-aid" and new supply of eye drops clutched in my hand, thinking to myself... I can do this...just 2 more weeks. WRONG!
Saturday morning... my eyeball is the color of a boiled lobster. Hmmm I'd say I was experiencing redness. Lets check it out in the light...OWIE!!! NO, Turn off the light!!! Ok vision affected, that's a big Check. Eye tearing again. Let's see what are my options...Office is closed on Saturday so I call and talk to the on call Dr. I'm told to keep doing drops, but add more of the wetting drops to the mix and I can also add back in a drop that was previously stopped (the sort of like ibuprofen for the eye one)...but no more than 2 times over the weekend. Oh I was also told that I didn't need to restrict myself from normal daily activites, but, if I was doing something and it bothers the eye...stop. Ok then... so I sat in the dark in my apt for the weekend...yay.
Guess who was BACK at the Dr. office bright and early Monday? Yep, Me! Eye still the color of a lobster, numbing drops in again to examine the eye (wouldn't stay open without them), "band-aid" comes out (whimper). News today is the eye is inflamed and the medication needs to be changed. I now need to put hourly drops in the eye, another type of drop 4 times a day, continue with the wetting drops as needed...oh and the Best news... Because of the hourly drops I can't have a new "band-aid".
Now, I like to think I'm a pretty reasonable person....but continous pain just does something to a person, and by this time I'm ready to hurt someone. Bad. Really bad. And I think it showed in my eye...you know the good one...cause the other was all squinshed shut again. The Dr. kind of looked at me and watched my fingers slowly piercing the leather on the armrest of the chair and then wrote me a prescription for some really cool eye lubricant to keep the eyeball and eyelid from feuding like the Hatfield's and McCoy's. This stuff is like putting a cross of Vaseline and Neosporin in your eye. Really gums up the eyelashes but the eyelid slides smoooooth.
Today is Thursday. I have another Dr. appointment in a few hours and I am happy to report... things are getting better. KNOCK WOOD. The eye is still pretty light sensitive...as a matter of fact all lights in the vicinity of my desk at work have been unscrewed so I sit here like a bat with my sunglass on. Yes, sunglass, singular. One of the guys I work with took a pair of those dark glasses you get when they dilate your eyes and we cut off the Right Eye lens and ear piece so all that is left is the nose part, left lens and ear piece. I look like a deranged Pirate....I'll try to get a picture. You have to see it to believe it.
But I digress...back to the eye. The red is mostly gone, I can keep it open most the time, tearing is off and on but nowhere near what it was. It does fatigue easily and by the end of the day it does ache some but wow...I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Stitches are scheduled to come out on June 26, and this had better work! Because there is absodamnlutely NO WAY I am going through this again!

And to assure that I do not in anyway jeopardise, damage, or totally screw things up...I won't be doing any horsey activity that would put my poor tortured and abused eyeball in peril. I may do some outside work in a round pen...possibly even ride in the outside round pen (Please, don't let me fall off!!! I do that occasionally). But no way I'll be riding in the arena where it would be exposed to all manner of dirt and dust.

So, yes, I have an excuse.

my eyeball hurts