Journal - More Eye Trouble

So on Monday I had a short shift at Walmart, 10am to 3pm. When I woke up that morning my eye was still sore and there was a noticeable spot almost directly on the center of the eye. Also there was a lot of redness around the eye. If you recall from my last post this was my left eye, the one I can’t see out of. Throughout my five hour shift that day my eye started hurting more and more and by the time I got off at 3:00 it was hurting quite a lot. While driving home I had to put on my sunglasses because the light was bothering me, something I haven’t had to do in a long time. My left eye has no light perception at all, but even when one eye is blind the eyes kind of work and react to things together.

As soon as I got home I took some Aleve for the pain and called Dr. Feilmeier’s office in Omaha. They scheduled me for an appointment for the next day, Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Dr. Feilmeier confirmed my suspicion that the eye was infected. He also confirmed what I already knew, that this was a particularly aggressive infection, having come on and advanced so quickly. I’ve had lots of eye infections but this one did come on rather suddenly. He put me on Trifluridine drops, which are specifically for the herpetic infection that I typically get and also Zymaxid, which is a more general type of antibiotic. He said he wanted to see me again on Saturday. Thinking this was an odd day for an appointment I questioned him and he said he was on call that day and would be seeing patients in the morning. Apparently his office keeps someone on call every weekend and it happened to be his turn. He also mentioned the possibility of coming in for surgery sometime to have my useless left eye removed completely. I didn’t like the sound of that very much but agreed to give it some thought, although frankly I wasn’t thinking about it very seriously and was more focused on getting this infection taken care of. Obviously this infection posed no direct threat to my vision but there is always the possibility of an infection moving from one eye to the other.

Wednesday I was off again, which was good. I had another short shift on Thursday and a long one on Friday. As we get nearer to Christmas business is picking up at Walmart so even the typically slow weekdays are getting kind of busy. I was still taking Aleve regularly during this time to keep the pain under control and so wasn’t really feeling it much.

On Saturday it was back to Omaha. Dr. Feilmeier said the infection was no better and maybe even worse. Since it wasn’t responding to the eye drops he took cultures of it. At this time he told me that we should get that surgery done as soon as possible, preferably early the following week. That really floored me as I had really thought I would have plenty of time to think that over and get my mind wrapped around it. It makes a lot of sense to have that eye removed; it will never see again and it will probably just sit there and cause me problems for as long as I have it. Also getting it removed and having a prosthesis put in would improve my appearance a lot although I’ve never been much bothered by that. It makes a lot of sense logically but still it bothered me a lot that I would be losing a part of myself. There was still a small part of me that was hoping for some medical breakthrough that would allow them to fix that eye someday. A longshot I know, but there it is. Having the eye removed sounded very final to me.

Well, that decision was taken out of my hands. This infection was very serious and Dr. Feilmeier was afraid it would go completely through the cornea and get inside the eye, which would cause even more serious complications. It needed to be done, and it needed to be done quickly. He said someone would get in touch with me early the following week to schedule the surgery.

Sunday I worked 12 to 5 and it was bitterly cold and windy. I did okay though. I had my overalls and a sweatshirt and coat. I wore my boots with thermal socks, kept my hood up to protect my ears, and had a neck warmer that I can pull up over my mouth and nose. My hands got a little cold, I may need better gloves for days like that, and by about 4pm my toes were getting cold, but I made it through. Oh, I also had some hot cider in a new thermos that I had bought just for the occasion. That helped a lot.

Today, Monday, I am off again and sure enough, they called at about 9:30am. I had been thinking they would want to schedule me later in the week, maybe Thursday or Friday, but no, they want me in on Tuesday, tomorrow. Wow. Completely discombobulated once again I asked if it could be later in the week and the nurse said she would check on it and call me back.

I took a few minutes to talk to Joni about it, and my mom, and to calm myself down. After that I figured it was pointless to fight the inevitable and we may as well get it over with. I’m as ready to do it as I will ever be, I only put the nurse off because I needed a little time. This has all happened so suddenly and I’ve never been very spontaneous. I like to think and plan.

Not much later, Dr. Feilmeier called me personally to urge me to get this done quickly. I told him I was okay with it, I had just needed a little time to think and talk with people. So it’s on for tomorrow at 1pm.

This afternoon I have to go to Kearney and get another pre-op physical. I called the Doctor and they can get me in at 2:30. In fact, I need to go get ready for that so I’ll sign off for now and hopefully write a little more later.

Psalms 118:8 It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. ESV

Isaiah 12:2 “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.” ESV