Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Halloween = Monster Eye

My Halloween was a bit crazy, but fun! Bozeman had Monster Ball on Thursday so we bought tickets. We got to go to all of the bars, see bands, etc. Great fun! I was dressed as Waldo and kept "waldo-ing" people's pictures. Random groups of people would stand together and I jumped in the background at the last second. A bunch of Bozeman-ites are going to have a fun time finding random Waldo in the back of their pictures! It was really funny and made me really happy... and then I got sick.

Luckily my roommate and I had a DD so I got to go home and go to bed. No more drinking for me. I woke up and it felt like something was in my eye. I looked and looked for it and couldn't find anything. I tried to flush it out with water, I tried to blink a lot, but nothing worked. I had tears streaming down half of my face but I didn't have time to do much about it. I had a meeting with representatives from all of the organizations that serve veterans at 7:30, followed by the most important meeting I have had to date at 9:00, so I parted my hair hoping my bangs would cover my red, swollen, watering, lop-sided eye. It didn't really work. I left the bathroom and ran into my roommate. She looked terrible. Our conversation went like this:

Me: Hi. Sorry about last night. My eye hurts.
Roomie. I just threw up my toast.
Me: We are a shit show.

My roommate went to work since she had a big presentation and I went to my meeting, even though there was no amount of makeup that would make me look decent. I sat through an hour of boring meeting with tears streaming down half my face, while I kept moving my bangs to cover my monster eye. I was drinking lots of blue powerade (hangover cure!) but it was not helpful. No bueno. I sent My roommate a txt at one point saying "Do you think if I asked nicely they would turn off the lights and whisper?" and she wrote back "I just threw up again." So then I laughed out loud for a second, which made me look like even MORE of a freak at my veteran meeting.

Then I went to work. I showed up with five minutes to spare before my first site visit from the Very High Ups. I told my supervisor I had something in my eye and that I was going to sit through the meeting and then go home and nap - she seemed perfectly fine with not having to look at my freak-eye all day. It was HALF its usual size, I had cried off all my makeup on the one side, and the white part was a vibrant red. The Very High Ups said it looked like I was doing great (while trying not to stare at my deformed face) and told me to go to the doctor.

I went to the optometrist and filled out the intake forms. The whole visit was a joke. The form said "sports/hobbies" so I wrote "long walks on the beach." The optometrist asked what happened, but I had no idea. He asked if I had sensitivity to light and I replied, "I'm hungover if that counts." And then he shined a light in my eye and I assured him that "yep. definitely sensitive to light." He put a drop in my eye that shows damaged tissue when looked at with a blue light - it hurt my eye and made my hangover hurt TENFOLD. I promised myself I would never drink again.

The optometrist told me it looked like I had taken "a pretty good chunk" out of my cornea. Well, that explains the pain. Then he told me that it looks like I did it with my fingernail. I almost threw up. I got a prescription for steroid eye drops and since WalMart has $4 prescriptions, went there to pick it up. I had to wait 15 minutes for them to fill it, which felt like an eternity with my freak eye, so I wandered around the food section. I didn't stand out too much at Walmart amidst all of the other locals who don't have to work at 10:30 am. I kept hoping and hoping I wouldn't be put on peopleofwalmart.com. I bought bacon and pizza rolls, picked up my prescription and went home. SURPRISE! My roommate was home too! Apparently puking at work earns you a day off!

So... We changed into pajama pants and ate bacon, pizza rolls, and pizza for the whole day. She kept shooting looks at my Monster Eye - I am pretty sure she was trying not to stare. The steroid drops had taken away a lot of the pain and redness by the next day, but my eye still itches intensely.