Scary adventure last night. Thought I lost an eye.
Cleaning up our ex-apartment, I dropped a bottle of bleach which had a loose cap, its lid flew over my head, and a stream of bleach went into my left eye.
Can we say not pleasant?
My first thought through pain and burning was I’d lost the eye or some of my vision.
Immediately flushed eye with sink hose cold water while Lady googled what to do. Search said flush eye with lukewarm water and go to emergency room. Flushed it twice again and went, though paused, thinking the worst was over and maybe we should just go home due to time and expense – when you’re raised financially poor (but with massive love) you always weigh the money.
Eye bright red and burning, waiting 30 minutes to see the doctor, I figure I may lose it, or at least have damaged vision, but I’m not really upset because this is nothing compared to what Lady’s going through – she got eye cancer 3 years ago, the radiation more or less ruined her vision (but killed the cancer) and every 3 months they shoot a large steroid pellet into her eyeball with an even larger needle. So if she can handle it, so can I & eye. Plus one eye is better than none.
I analyze my symptoms and decide the burning has peaked, and I can still see. Doctor says I’m probably okay thanks to our immediate flushing and the fact that store bleach is quite diluted, but says my 3 minutes of flushing should have been 10, so I do 10 more minutes.
The water washes off the tear film normally covering the eyeball, so now I can’t see much of anything out of it. Doctor puts a PH strip in my tears, PH is perfect, then stains the eye to see if there’s any physical damage, says I’m fine, will be in pain for few days but likely no problems.
Now next morning, eye still red and irritated but most pain gone, vision back, and on we go.
I’ve so many instances where life could have been waaaay worse, and yet I skate.
Thank you Reality.
The foto below is Lady’s left eye scan before this week’s needle injection.
Our newly adopted old dog also has a left eye problem we’re medicating, whereas our cat has a weepy right eye.
Eye yi yi.
