The Blind Side

This past weekend I took a trip with my friends down to southern California.  We went to places like Disneyland, California Adventure and Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles.  During the trip I got sick, and injured.  I came down with nausea on Friday night.  Saturday, while at Disneyland I noticed a blurry spot in my left eye's field of vision, but it didn't hurt.  I didn't think anything of it.  Sunday morning I woke up with excruciating pain in my left eye, unable to open it, or my right eye either without a stabbing, lacerating pain.  It felt like a piece of glass in my eye.  After two Emergency Room visits, anesthetic, pain medication, and antibiotics, I learned of the cause of the pain.  I had a corneal abrasion over my left pupil. This was causing the scraping pain, like rubbing sand paper against my left eye, unable to open either eye for more than a fraction of a second.

This past weekend I learned a lot.  Not only that something so small can hurt so badly.  This experience reminded me how when one part of the body hurts, the whole body cannot function normally.  Thank you to all my friends who took care of me, including guiding me to the car, taking me to multiple hospital and pharmacy visits, and preparing food for me.  And thank you to my friend for driving all the way back up to home.  I know it was a long drive.  The weekend could have been a total disaster, but it wasn't.  Yes, it was a painful weekend, but with all the love I received from my brothers and sisters in Christ, it turned out to be a overall positive experience of developing new friendships and building upon established ones.

One more thing.  I went to different emergency rooms.  One on Sunday, which was not a very good experience.  I had to wait over an hour to been seen, and the doctor was not too helpful.  The second visit, to UC Irvine Medical Center was a much more positive experience.  I was seen within 5 minutes of entering the hospital, the doctor explained to me in detail why I was in so much pain, she had her supervisor talk to me, and I was referred to their eye center, where an opthamologist inserted a bandage onto my eye (that was cool).  This reminded of me how important it is to be patient and kind to my patients as a nurse, and how much of a difference good service can make to a person's experience.