Monday, December 21, 2009

His Eye Had It!

The past few days here have been more than a little chaotic. It doesn't involve Christmas shopping, because I managed to get that out of the way along with getting the cards and packages mailed.

Let's start with... DH having to work down in Philly all of last week. Which means early mornings and long days. We made it through the first 3 days with overtime hours thrown in to the mix as well. Last Friday, DH was suppose to bring me something "special" for dinner, but it didn't happen due to overtime and having to be at the office for an extended amount of time, that he didn't get home until 9pm. That brings me back to Thursday of this past week. DH was going to be getting home at a "reasonable time" and I asked that he stop at "that special place" and pick up dinner. He was more than happy to do so!

So... he stops... he gets that "special take-out" for our dinner. Then he has to stop for gas... and goes inside to wash his face and clean up a little bit. He often does this as his job requires him to get quite dirty. He gets home, we have dinner... he shares with me that he feels as tho something is in his eye. I suggest that we use the Opthalmic eye wash solution... he uses it... I also flush his eye while he lies down. He tells me that it's burning and it hurts. I tell him that we are going to the ER.

So... off to the ER we go... and we are seen quite quickly. But... the ER doctor only puts stain in his eye and tells us that it's an abrasion. I looked... it went from one side to the other, just below the center of the eye. OOOOOOWWWWWWW! With that... the doctor does nothing more, doesn't give DH any eye drops, nothing for pain, no antibiotics. Tell us to give it 24 hours. So we do.

That night, DH was in a lot of pain... he took 3 excedrin, 2 tylenol, I gave him a tramadol and also a vicoden. And I even gave him an Ambien to help him sleep. It was a long night for all of us. (I didn't take my Ambien... I was awake all night long.) DH went to work on Friday... and worked a very long day. He had to stop twice on the way home and rest his eyes... he said it felt like something was still in there. We called our family care doctor, who told us to go to the ER if it doesn't let up or get any better. I also called our eye doctor (whom DH saw back in August for his migraines) who was very concerned that the ER doctor hadn't given him any drops or hadn't really done anything for him. We were instructed to go and get Refresh Optiv to help and then see him on Monday.

By Saturday morning, DH said he could feel something in his eye still... so I fixed a quick breakfast and off to the ER we went again. The same ER clerk from Thursday night was there, and so we were seen fairly quickly. We had a different doctor... who listened intently... and actually did a thorough exam using a specific eye scope and told us that DH had a piece of metal in his eye that had rusted in. It was located in his iris. He didn't feel that he could take it out and that we would need to see an eye specialist. Luckily, I had that phone number in my cell phone and the doctor called him. We had a 3 o'clock appointment with him in his office in Wilkes-Barre. So... off to Wilkes-Barre we went. We had about 3 hours to wait. So we had lunch at Red Robin. We shopped a little bit... and then we went to the office and waited.

At 2:45, the office manager showed up and let us in. At about 3:10, the eye surgeon showed up... took DH back to a room and things got started. It was very quick, but very thorough. He got the metal out... checked and went back in to get the rest of the rust out of his eye. I was in there while the eye surgeon checked his vision... and it seems that there should be no issues with that! Needless to say... we are very grateful that he came to help DH.

In the midst of all of this... it's been snowing... and I have to do all the driving. It was exhausting for me to keep going and going... doing all the calls, and then driving and running around and then driving home in the snow storm. We came home to a few inches in the driveway and then a few more added on top after that. DH woke up on Sunday, feeling much better.

I, on the other hand... often have a delayed stress reaction. And I did... I felt pretty much like I had been through the wringer. In between all of this going on, I had been doing all the grocery shopping... and I'm talking a major grocery shopping, both on Thursday and again on Friday. And to top it off... because I was so tired, both on Friday and Saturday, I forgot to also take any of my medications. I learned the hard way that I cannot skip taking medications anymore. (I used to get away with that all the time!) I started to put myself into congestive heart failure... that wonderful drowning feeling, with a constant cough and fatigue. I took my medicine around 11:30pm on Saturday night, sitting up to breathe and let it start to work. I took my dose for Sunday at around 6pm and today I will take it around noon. Then tomorrow I will be back on schedule. I am starting to feel much better this morning... but I am still gonna lay low today.

Oh... and in the midst of all the snow clean up yesterday... we called our landlord 3 times about not having our driveway plowed. The crew finally showed up at 3 o'clock (good thing I wasn't going to go to church!) and proceeded to start clearing the driveway, only to go too far off the pavement and get stuck in our yard! They ended up leaving a huge 12 inch ditch in two places after having to be towed out! It's small town living at it's finest!

There you have it... the scoop on what's going on! Thanks for reading... be blessed!
~Suzanne

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