I'm so paranoid...

It was so windy in Austin today… we were dodging flying cows and battening down the hatches and so forth… Actually, I don’t even know what “battening” means, to be honest. I know what a HATCH is… but I wouldn’t know how to “batten” it if you asked me to. So if, like today, it was very windy and someone yelled, “Lisa! Batten down the hatches!” I’d pretty much just be like, “uh, okay…” and then I’d go back to doing whatever it was I’d already been doing. Because if I can’t do something right, then I’d better not do it at all…

I’ve had really bad luck with windy days in the past. I’ve been the unfortunate recipient of two corneal ulcers – which might as well be called “big gaping holes in your eye.” It’s not a good thing to have a big gaping hole in your eye. In fact, it’s generally considered rather bad. And I believe both of them were the direct result of windy days in correlation with my contact lenses. I’ve worn contacts since I was about 16 years old, and I never had any problems with them at all until one windy June afternoon in the year 2000. (Is it sad that I can pinpoint the date so specifically? I guess it could just be because I have a good memory…) I was outside, walking through a mall parking lot, feeling continuously buffeted by the wind, and I felt something sharp jab me in the eye. No doubt some tiny piece of debris whipped up by the gale – but even something tiny can feel quite annoying when it takes up residence next to your eyeball. Once I reached the protective barrier of the shopping mall, I kept rubbing my eye, hoping to dislodge whatever had been blown into it. Eventually, I either managed to get rid of it or I just became numb to it… either way, I forgot all about it for a few days…

And then one morning I put my contact lens in my eye, and thought I’d trapped an eyelash underneath it. I kept looking in the mirror, trying to find the offending little hair, but couldn’t see anything. The more I rubbed my itchy, watery eye, the worse it felt. Finally, some time that evening, I took my contact lens out and looked in the mirror again. This time, I could see a big white patch on the iris of my eye – I was preeeeety sure it wasn’t supposed to be there. The itching had given way to outright pain and an extreme sensitivity to light, and every few seconds, my eye was overcome with bizarre muscle spasms. And what’s worse was that it was Saturday night and the eye doctor was closed until Monday. So I spent all day Sunday sitting in the dark, hoping that my eyeball wouldn’t fall out before I managed to get to the doctor. And it turned out that wasn’t even a BAD corneal ulcer. They’re a lot worse if they get infected – but I managed to get antibiotic drops before that had a chance to happen.

A couple years ago, after yet another windy day, I noticed the exact same thing starting to happen. Fortunately, since I’d already been through it once, I recognized the symptoms as soon as I felt that “eyelash in the eye” feeling. So it didn’t have a chance to grow to epic proportions. But it still left me without the option to wear contacts for a few weeks, and had me seriously considering lasik surgery to correct my eyesight. I’m still thinking about it… the idea of a laser in my eye isn’t exactly appealing to me. But neither are stupid corneal ulcers every time there’s a windy day and some piece of dirt gets stuck underneath my contact.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I’m certain there’s something in my eye…




It's just the wind... my hair doesn't ALWAYS look like this... well, maybe it does...