There was no sight-seeing on our way home, and we were only there for two days. Day one we took everyone available to an I-love-you Valentine's lunch (Tex-Mex of course).
Day two? Well, day two began at about 2 a.m.
I have Sojgren's Disease which is simply a form of arthritis. It causes some joint pain, but more immediately it causes dryness: dry mouth, dry skin, dry eyes. At 2 a.m. Sunday morning I woke up knowing there was an eye-event going on. I went to the mirror, and Holy cow, wow! did I have an event!! All of the "white" in my left eye had ballooned with blisters filled with dark red blood. Not being a panic person (but thinking I could scare the beegeebers out of adults with this new look), I assessed the situation. Consciously checking, there did not seem to be any change in my vision. There was no pain other than the eyelid not being happy about having to accommodate the swollen membrane. There was no bleeding (yet). Other than an optometrist maybe using a syringe to draw off the blood, I don't think anything could be done. Possibly, nothing should be done as long as my vision was not changed in any way. So, I put in some Systane Ultra eye drops and went back to bed.
With the sunrise, I knew Granny Beth would be up. She's a retired RN, therefore I thought she at least wouldn't faint when I showed her my eye. True to form, she couldn't believe what she saw, but no panic ensued. I reviewed with her my earlier thoughts, and she agreed with the assessment. There was nothing to do but wait for a decent Sunday morning hour to put in a call to my eye doctor.
As family members got up or arrived I would cover my eye, prepare them for it, and then reveal the problem. There was no going to church like that; everyone would think I had been possessed! Me and my Systane Ultra stayed home.
Contemplating the event, I decided that it was a combination of the normal dry eyes and maybe allergies stirred up when I cleaned out the flowerbed Saturday afternoon. I absolutely love working my flower beds, and I delighted in the little bit of work required to set things right for Spring. I saw some moldy spore-lookin' stuff on some of the dead Canna leaves, but I figured no big deal. Ha! was I ever wrong!
Celebrating our homecoming with family kinda died down because of that. Our Dallas son and family drove all the way to Tyler to go to Sunday School and church with us. They enjoyed it with Granpa and Granny Beth... Parents prepared our little grandchildren for the eye problem so that they wouldn't be frightened by it -- but they simply hugged me, looked at my eye, and proceeded to go out and play with each other and the animals. No worries.
While at church, our daughter-in-law showed a photo I had taken of my eye (some selfie!) to an ER doctor/church member. He was appalled. He thought I should go to the ER asap.
I did call my eye doctor, and he said, yup, things like that happen sometimes. If there is no change in vision, not a problem. It will clear up in 4-6 weeks! Yikes!!! Throughout the day the swelling increased, so I ultimately called him back for reassurance that it would stop at the iris (though the swelling itself had laid over a portion of it). The blood was beginning to "weep" out, and I thought emailing or messaging a photo of it to him would make me feel better. He declined the photo op, reassured me the swelling would not affect the iris, and said adios.
Everyone went home, John got some sleep, Systane and I made a night of it.
We left for Arizona Monday morning. I made certain that Systane was in my pocket. (Oddly enough, just before we left for Texas, I bought two new bottles of Systane Ultra just because. Very cool, huh?) I kept my sunglasses on through lunch and whenever I thought other people might catch a glimpse of "the evil eye."
Tuesday morning at breakfast in the hotel I continued to wear the sunglasses. A very nice couple sat down next to us. She was "chatty," mentioned that her eye was swollen from a fall she had taken, and that she had debated whether to put makeup on or not. I complimented her makeup, and commented that makeup wouldn't help mine! That opened up the whole story. Providentially, the Lord was with me yet again. Her husband was a retiring ophthalmologist with over 40 years of experience! He was intrigued, and asked to take a look at my eye. (Oh, my goodness! At breakfast?) I thought that the photo I had taken to send to my eye doctor might provide more privacy that uncovering my eye for everyone to see, so I showed him that (after asking if he was absolutely certain that he wanted to see it.) "Wow," he said.
I could tell he was resisting doing a thorough investigation of it, but he finally asked to actually see the real deal. Checking to see if there were breakfast guests that might also see, I took off my sunglasses and eyeglasses for just a few seconds. The long and the short of it, he said the same things my eye doctor had said over the phone. He also assured me that there would be no way for the iris to become involved in the swelling. (That definitely made me feel better!) The "weeping" of blood wasn't of great concern, only if it actually began to bleed would there be a reason to check in with a doctor. If there was no change in vision, I should just wait out the weeks it would take for the blood to be absorbed back into the blood stream. At the point of greatest swelling, he said the blood had congealed, so that would take longer to go away. Sigh. But thank you, Lord!We parted ways and headed west.
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