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How I inadvertently punctured a hole in my own eye

Note: Not for the squeamish. In short: I’m totally fine now.

Sunday started off just like any other lazy sunday. Got a haircut, ran some errands and then had dinner with some friends. During dinner at one point I was rubbing my eye and felt a slight pain/itch. I thought that maybe I had scratched my eye or something. When I got home I tried looking in the mirror but it was late and I was tired, so I figured I’d get some sleep and see how it felt in the morning.

Unfortunately the discomfort was still there. At work (with better lighting) I was able to see that I had an eyelash stuck in my tear duct. While uncomfortable, it didn’t seem like a big deal. I could see the eyelash sticking out of the hole… now if only I had a pair of tweezers to yank it out.

Of course, I’m not stupid enough to try and stick pointy metal objects into my own eye. So I called up the local optometrist (yay! I actually am one of the stupid poor people who pays a ton of money every month for health insurance just for stupid shit like this) and made an appointment.

After hours of waiting, I finally got in to see the doctor and explained my predicament.

The doctor said, “It’s no big deal, it happens every once in a while, let’s take a look.”

After using her gear to search around my eye for a bit she said, “there’s nothing in your tear duct.”

“So what’s that hole with my eyelash sticking out of it?”

And then came the words that you never want to hear from your eye doctor.

“Um, that hole isn’t supposed to be there. You’ve punctured it yourself.”

After numbing my eyes with an anesthetic, she fetched the scariest pair of sharp tweezers I’ve ever seen and fished the “eyelash” out of the hole. She then showed it to me.

Turns out it wasn’t an eyelash at all, it was one of my own hairs leftover from the haircut, and after somehow managing to puncture my own eye, I managed somehow to shove the one inch strand almost ALL THE WAY IN. Ouch.

The good news is that the hole will heal itself pretty quickly. She prescribed some antibiotics to ward off infection.

“Are there any side effects?”

“No major ones but it will make your vision blurry.”

“Uh, I work in front of a computer ALL DAY.”

“Well, its blurriness for a couple of weeks or losing an eye to an infection.”

I think I can put up with this fucking blurriness.

The end.

Meta

• Posted: 2007/10/31 - 54:10AM
• Permalink: http://tmblr.co/ZaNtby14iYz