If you were reading this blog earlier in May, you know that I developed a bit of an infection in my right eye about a week before my trip to London. Concerned, I immediately went to a clinic to get my eye checked out by a doctor. He prescribed antibiotics in the form of eye drops.
Once I got the eye drops home, I realized I’m terrible at putting drops in my eye. I wound up missing a lot. I’d either get the drop on my lashes, on the lid, or below my eye. You’re probably thinking that’s no big deal since the drops could just run into my eye. These drops were viscous though and only turned more liquid once they made contact with the fluid on your eyeball. So if I didn’t get it right into my eye, I’d just have a goopy mess near my eye.
Anyways, I sorta got the hang of it. I was instructed to keep applying the drops for a total of seven days. This was perfect because it was exactly seven days until my flight to London. My eye was quite tender when I started the course of antibiotics but by about the third day or so the pain subsided considerably. I kept applying the drops dutifully for seven days because I don’t mess around with antibiotics.
I made the decision to leave the drops at home and didn’t pack them on my flight. My reasoning was that the pain had gone away and I had followed the doctor’s orders. I get on the flight, fly to London, take the train to my hotel, walk around London for five hours because my room isn’t ready, and then finally I am able to get up to my room and unpack. Because I felt like just a gross and tired mess, I almost immediately went to take a shower.
I tell you, the first shower after a trans-Atlantic flight is one of the best things you can experience. As I step out of the steamy shower, I noticed the bathroom mirror is all fogged up except for a neat and large rectangle right in the middle. Cool, this hotel features heated bathroom mirrors!
I saunter up to the mirror and for the first time since I’ve left home, I take a real good look at my ugly mug. I didn’t really use the mirror in the airplane bathroom. As I take in the sight that is my face, I notice my right eye, the eye that was infected earlier in the week. A large part of my sclera, the white part of my eye, is just a bright splotch of red, especially near the bottom half of my eye. It was basically the iris surrounded by just red. A whole bunch of blood vessels had obviously burst. Everyone gets some redness in their eye once in a while but this was more than I had ever experienced.
It was totally gross looking but I calmed down quite quickly. First, I had experienced no pain whatsoever which is why I was so surprised to see it. Second, my vision wasn’t impaired so also put me back at ease. It did look somewhat horrifying though, so my only worry was freaking out people who I had to talk to while on vacation. I could explain it to my two friends in London but it’s just awkward when the dude at McDonald’s taking my order is sketched out by my exploded eyeball.
I was expecting the redness to go away fairly quickly but it did not. It took several days before there was even any noticeable difference. Even by the end of my trip, the eighth day, there was still a bit of red in the sclera. I guess the most scary thing about this happened on the flight home as we descended down towards YVR. My right eye began to hurt, like there was pressure on it. I started to think that my eyeball was about to burst. Luckily, the pain only lasted for about five minutes. I half expected to see another bloody mess when I finally got in front of an airport bathroom mirror but my eye looked alright.
I wonder if I should get it checked out again.