…or at work, which is where I did it, to my shooting eye, no less.
“It” is toughing out an irritating bit of dirt under your left contact lens during a four-hour meeting, and making matters worse by rubbing the eye with your bacteria-covered fingers. Then compounding the error that evening by collapsing into bed without removing the lens, giving the bacteria time to grow and multiply. Then trying to tough it through the next day with a throbbing, beet-red eyeball.
By the time I got to the eye doctor, I was dangerously close to an ulcerated cornea or worse. The doc bitched me out for doing this to myself, then said, “do you want to save your eye?”
I nodded vigorously. I didn’t (and don’t) know if he was being overly dramatic in order to get me to comply with his instructions, or if I was really that bad off.
“Okay, then,” he said, “you’re not going to sleep for the next two days. Starting now, you’re going to put two of these drops (Vigamox TM, a kewl new antibiotic) in your eye every fifteen minutes for the next six hours, then every thirty minutes for the next eighteen hours. At that point you come back here for a follow-up appointment. If everything goes well, we’ll cut you down to two drops every hour for another twenty-four.”
I followed the instructions, somehow managed to catch some sleep in a few thirty-minute chunks, and just got back from the follow-up earlier this evening. The eye is much better and the doc’s pleased with the success of the aggressive treatment. I have another follow-up tomorrow morning.
I’ve worn contact lenses for more than twenty-five years. Recently, I have allowed some laxity to seep into my daily eyewear routine. No more!
This is my shooting eye! And Boomershoot’s only six weeks away…. Scary.
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Oh I got something in my eye and under my contact at Boy Scout camp one summer. After my mom had to come get me before the week was over and take me to the emergency room the eye doctor said I couldn’t wear contacts for another three years in order to allow my eye to heal completely.
This was the summer before my freshman year so I had to wear glasses the first three years in high school. I didn’t then and still don’t like the way I look with glasses on. I ALWAYS take very good care of my eyes now! I bet you will do the same from now on.
Scary indeed. If you had lost the eye, you would have had to fit out your boomershoot rifle with one of Mr. Completely’s XS/RD/IR/Proximity sights, designed to make sighting unnecessary, which he currently has mounted on an “ordinary” .22 rimfire race gun that requires a medium truck to haul around….
Pretty soon, Bill Gates will write programs for electronic sights, then, of course, we’re doomed as a race.
Actually, with intense effort, you can teach yourself to shoot “wrong-eye”. I’m living proof. I have a right master-eye and shot pistol AND competitive indoor smallboare until I was 35 WITH THE WRONG EYE AND THE WRONG HAND (attaining Distinguished Junior Indoor anyway).
One day, on the Sheriff’s handgun range, the excellent instructional crew we had were observing us sighting (dry revolvers) from in front of the firing line, risky, but it was to catch just what I was doing.
After telling me that I was a “natural” righty, I switched, which required thousands of rounds of additional practice.
The results were obvious: I had been a consistent qualifier in the mid-80’s, shooting with my weak eye. When I changed to my master eye AND master hand, my scores went up ten points, and I quickly attained Revolver Master, the Pistol Master (when pistols arrived for our use), then finally Shotgun Master.
Master required a demonstration of no less than 96 on three consecutive qualification sessions. I never got Rifle Master, because being appointed to the Tactical Weapons Squad which shot AR-15s was a political thing, and after getting my initial appointment, I didn’t last long there because I wouldn’t kiss the ass of the elitists on the Squad. One of my faux pas was to take an old, iron-sighted AR and whip the fair-haired boys in a challenge match with it. Said fair-haired boys had new ARs with optical sights. My revenge was complete when the Sergeant who fired me off the Squad was indicted for corruption a few years later, and resigned in disgrace.
Oh well, there wsn’t enough room on my uniform to wear the extra badge, anyway.
WOW! Pretty scary stuff. All I can say is, glad you’re feelong better and NEVER do that again!
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