Thursday, April 24, 2014

a ridiculous post about eyes (and worrying)

the other night i was literally lying (or laying? what kind of english major am i ...) awake in bed, unable to fall asleep, because i was worrying that i might have eye cancer or need to have my eye removed or wear an eye patch the rest of my life. the more i thought about it and worried, the worse my eye hurt.

my eye had been really, really red a week before that and i told lance i was worried about it. not a completely ridiculous concern, because last summer i had a corneal ulcer in each eye. if corneal ulcers sounds like something more common in senior citizens than women in their twenties, that is because they are. leave it to me to have not one, but two.

the eye doctor who diagnosed them told me that it was very serious and it was good we caught it early, because you can go blind from these things. talk about terrifying. and because i was pregnant we couldn't even use the medication usually used to treat them, so that was also unsettling. but i got a different prescription and eventually they were cleared up to the specialist's satisfaction.

so when my eye was all red i got scared, but lance assured me it was probably just because i was so sleep deprived. the redness went away in a day or so, and i sighed in relief that lance was right.

but then my eye started hurting and burning, and after my sleepless night i made an eye doctor appointment.

naturally, two things happened.

first it occurred to me that maybe it was allergies. the pollen in columbus is severe. (but why was only one eye so bothered?)

second, my eye started to feel MUCH better today, the day of my appointment. isn't that always how it goes?

so i went to my eye doctor appointment tonight … only to be told: allergies. more bothersome in my left eye because the corneal ulcer was so bad in that eye, and now my eye could always be extra sensitive.

i have to laugh at myself … because how many of my worries are like this? (um, all of them.) i let my mind go crazy only for everything to be a-okay so many times, that i barely remember all of the times that it happens. which is why i decided to write this ridiculous post as a future reminder not to worry.


the other thing i got worked up about this week that ended up being fine, was dax's two month shots. partly because of the recent hype/controversy over whether vaccines are good or not for babies. mostly because i didn't want to see him in pain, and i was stressing that he would be screaming the rest of the day and night. but lance went along and helped to hold him down, so i didn't really have to watch … best husband/dad! and dax slept way more than usual that day and night - woohoo!

dax was 14.1lbs and 25 inches. i think he might be an inch taller, but the nurse had to work just to get him to stretch his leg so as it was. both of his nurses and the doctor commented about how strong he is. watching his personality grow is so much fun. we love him so much.