The Pink Eye: Damn Unpretty

For vanity's sake: Pink-eyed Sars from day 1 to day 5. :)
If there are moments when I feel unsexy and unpretty, it's these past few days. I've had a sore eye or a pink eye - for the second time in my life. I couldn't remember the first time anymore - I was in grade school I think. But I can still remember how my mom took care of me then by filling my eye with ointment.

This time was different though. Because I had a history of having a chronic vernal kerato conjunctivitis (from contact lenses) in the past 5 years, I didn't think of it as a sore eye at first when it started to have the burning sensation on Thursday night. But it started to get so red but not really swollen like before. Then I remember my brothers and cousins being attacked by sore eyes in a span of two weeks just before I left Manila - one after the other. Then I ruled out that it's a sore eye or the pink eye.

Say what?!
Being in a foreign land, I couldn't just go to any pharmacy and ask for over-the-counter meds. Weekend was a pain as I didn't have any medicines, only relied on hubby's eyedrops for irritated eyes. So when the non-English speaking hotel doctor came in on Monday, he gave me erythromycin eye ointment & orofloxacin eye drops and was instructed in Chinese. Luckily my brain could pick up some words from his instructions and I could understand the last thing he told me, "If it ain't better in 2-3 days, better go to a hospital". What?!!! Hospital?!!! No way. Gotta make these meds my bestfriends for the next days and will just follow its direction on the box... wait... OHHH MY GAWD! The directions of use on the boxes were all written in Chinese, too!

Luckily, the technology has its sweet way to help me. I tweeted the pictures of the medicines (above) to my followers on Twitter and asked help for translation. And yes, couple of them did and translated what was written in Chinese. Thanks bro Lone & sis Melinda! Thanks Twitter! :)

Get well soon, alr-eye?
I've been on the meds for 3 days now. It feels better now but I still can't see an aesthetic improvement at all. I hope it gets better soon. It's difficult not to look people in the eye when I talk to them or cover my left eye purposely or hide under my shades even when I go inside a supermarket. I know I have beautiful eyes, can't wait to get the other one back. Guess this is the perfect time to say to myself: Patience is a virtue.

PS: Thanks to all of you who have wished me well, especially to my Twitter followers and friends. Thanks to my hubby Marl for making me feel good about myself. He told me while I was singing onstage, "Nevermind, you're still pretty even with your sore eye. Wanna shoot tomorrow?". LOL. I know that the last part was his sarcastically sweet quip. :)

4 comments:

Jaclynne Magno-Choi said...

Hi Sarita, I'm an eye doc and I would heed the doctors advice about going to the hospital in the event that it does not get better. You may be having preseptal cellulitis since the lid area is inflamed. Conjunctivitis refers to inflammation of the white part of the eye. A stubborn preseptal cellulitis can lead to orbital cellulitis which is an ocular emergency. Watch out for any pain with eye movement and changes in your pupillary response and size. Just a friendly advice....

~*.*~ SaRiTa ~*.*~ said...

A what?!?! Oh my gawd, thanks for the advice, Jac! However, that's one of the things that I'm scared of - hearing the medical terms which sound so scary to a layman's ears. But I know I cannot delay this case anymore. Hopefully I get a good doctor/hospital. Really scared of doctors na! :(

cari bilik sewa said...

eye is probably the most crucial organ for a human. if you lose your sight , you lose near your life. i think doc is right , u should go and consult a specialist

~*.*~ SaRiTa ~*.*~ said...

thank you so much for the advice and for the concern!