Eye day 3
Okay.. so day 2 went by without much complaint. Several drops through the day, no bike (other than to/from the bus stop in the morning), and a long boring day at work. I would have enjoyed a nice day at the park, but my eyes were still light sensitive, and there was no way I would have been able to play volleyball or “home run derby”. that being said…it was a good day. I stayed up way later than I should have…watching movies and playing coputer games.. enjoying the fact that I could see with some reasonable amount of clarity.
Two nights of sleeping soundly with my goggles not falling of or into my eye, it has been nice. Unfortunately, the contacct that my doc gave me was not meant to stay in apparently, as i woke up this moring feeling the excruciating pain of having something in my eye. I should have listened and taken it out…but he said that only if it was bothering me. So far its been out for about 3 hours and it’s starting to feel better. The wind from the fansin the house (at work) are drying the eye out, so I have to keep it lubricated. I’ll go back to drops every two hours (of the steroid), which I started reducing to 3 hours last night, since I’d gone a whole day w/o pain.
I ust wish I could see something other than a blur right now. I felt a little sea sick from not wearing the lense, as a result of the astigmatism and blurring. It’s amazing how the brain accomodates for the eyes… I still don’t get it, but as long as my doctor understands, I’m satisfied.
The healing process seems to be going well. I’m not rubbing, although I really want to rub my left eye, which has been getting sympathy pains or something. I’m doing my best to not, Friday I had to because something was in there and it would not come out with drops.
the only other side effect of this is that my right eye has been leaking like a runny faucet and I can’t wash the dry tears and drops from my eye, because iI’ not supposed to use tap water. Yesterday I cleaned it with contact solution… but that didn’t seem to help much.
Just a few more weeks. No inversions but all other yoga poses are ok. No sparring or contact sports…and no swimming. Tuesday I’ll try to go for a modearate bike ride, to the post office or something.
Peace Corps
After several months (almost a year) of contemplating and reviewing the peae corps, I finally submitted my application a few weeks ago. After some complications with getting information to the PC, getting my finger prints, getting my references, and what not… i had my interview today (the process took about 3 weeks from my application date).
the interview was about an hour long, mostly going over what I had already talked about in my application: experiences, significant leadership roles exp, living alone vs. community/housemate/roommate, being a guest of another culture, and what not. Some wfelt challenging, but I think i did very well, especially since she said:
“We have one spot left for next summer that I think you’d be perfect for, how would you feel about doing work with at-risk youth in Eastern Europe?” The spot is from next June for 27 months. How about that, I have a guaranteed job for 27 months with the government with pid time, and full medical coverage, and some very nice benefits. There is also a $6000 stipend post completion and they would pay for some of my student loans, if they were Perkins… too bad, eh?
anyway, My next step is to “hurry up and wait” for my background check. They will also mail me a package explaining the program expectations more in depth and giving me some documents to complete prior to my official offer. This is mostly medical documents, screening, etc. they want to mke sure they’re not going to send someone to an “infectuous” country who may be susseptible to whatever.
Wish me luck and I’ll post more info as i have it.
Intacs Day 1
yesterday I had Intacs put ito my eyes. For those who don’t know what this is.. .go to www.nkcf.org. There’s some minimal information describing Keratoconus (the ey dieseasee i have prompting the mplants), and various treatments for KC.
anyway, yesterday went pretty smooth. 30 min suregery to cut open the eye and slid in the small plastic devices into my eyes. I was given several drops o nump the eye, and lube the eye, and some other things (infection, etc). i was also given a valium, but was able to take another if needed. i used a lot of meditation and deep breathing. It was more disorienting than painful oruncomfortable. I went home and my eye was a little red, when i got home I was able to see a little more clearly (w/ a 10power lense) and the redness wetnt down. I watched a couple movies cleaned the house and went to bed.
Today I woke up around 5am (about 4 hours earlier than I nromally wake up) feeling this excruciating pain in my eye. i realized that the goggles that they had given me to cover my eye while sleeping had slid off my face oand onto my eye. . who knows how long it was rubbign the eye.
When I rode to the doctor (big mistake, but I felt like I had no other option… although I could have called my dad who was off today…fuck!) I got to the docs office and felt miserable. my sinus’ were running amuck all day, the eye drops were draining into my sunus giving me that soapy/medicine flavor… woohoo.
When I finally saw the doc, they did an eye exam and seemed to be positive. The doc told me that with the power 10 lense, my vision was at about a 13 diopter (normal vision is 0, most people with mild myopia or near sigtedness havea -3 and my normal vision w/o lenses or intacs is a -19 in that eye. Today it was -13..which is GOOD! He siad that that may continue to change as the eye heals and the lenses take. There is some mild “road rash” on the eye either from the surgery or from rubbing my eye overnight. He said more drops of the steroid, continue lubricating drops and keep them cool to help w/ the pain. he also gave me IB for the eye. and a patch that I tape over my eye at night. at least fora couple days.
I rode again to wokr because my eye felt good (of course… it was numb from more drops… duh). By the time I got to work, my eyes were killing me from the light, and from the exposure to the air. I’ve been sitting here in the dark hating the bright computer screen!
it’s feeling a little better, I’ve been dropping every two hours and it’s been doing well. I think I said that though.
Well, I will continue to write about my experience as the days go by. follow up apt #2 is on Tuesday.
