Turns out that masturbating isn't the only thing that can make you go blind.
Bacteria can do it, too.
I woke up last night feeling like I had ground up glass in both of my eyes, and when I tried to go to the bathroom to check it out, I couldn't stand the light. Like, at all. My first thought was pink eye (eww). I spent the rest of the night with a wet wash cloth over my face, trying to soothe away the pain. When I got up at 8 for class, I couldn't see very well and my eyes were still really irritated (though not inflamed, surprisingly). I went to class (because I ALWAYS go to class), stumbled through the morning, wore sunglasses indoors without a hint of irony, and somehow managed to drive myself to Urgent Care. They told me it probably wasn't pink eye, made sure I didn't have any scratches on my eyeballs, and I then sent me to a real eye doctor.
He examined me and told me that, basically, I have bacteria eating my corneas. Like teeny tiny zombies. Awesome. Probably strep. He said I'm really lucky, because they're not congregating around the center, but in little blobs around the sides. center=blindness. I have to put antibiotic drops in my eyes constantly and I'm banned from contact lenses until further notice. I have to go back in on Monday and 1)make sure my eyeballs aren't melting out of their sockets and 2)get new glasses.
He then told me that I really have no business wearing contacts ever again, and I should consider lasik in a couple of years. I got a lecture about sleeping in my contacts (which I've done for years) and not cleaning them properly (I'm allergic to regular contact solutions and have to use hypo-allergenic saline and soak my lenses every night in hydrogen peroxide. Which I don't because I'm lazy.). Yeah.
In other news...there really isn't other news. I'm starting to do research for my honors paper, which is bringing back all sorts of memories from my Chinese history class freshman year of high school. It's really novel to be examining a non-pagan tradition so thoroughly and to find it so engrossing. I've always thought of Buddhism as being on the other end of the religious spectrum from where I'm standing (and I think it still is, at its core), but it makes a lot more sense to me now and I can understand the appeal where I couldn't before. Plus the history in China is really interesting.
And it's not unlike studying Norse or Celtic traditions in that I still can't pronounce anyone's names.
I woke up last night feeling like I had ground up glass in both of my eyes, and when I tried to go to the bathroom to check it out, I couldn't stand the light. Like, at all. My first thought was pink eye (eww). I spent the rest of the night with a wet wash cloth over my face, trying to soothe away the pain. When I got up at 8 for class, I couldn't see very well and my eyes were still really irritated (though not inflamed, surprisingly). I went to class (because I ALWAYS go to class), stumbled through the morning, wore sunglasses indoors without a hint of irony, and somehow managed to drive myself to Urgent Care. They told me it probably wasn't pink eye, made sure I didn't have any scratches on my eyeballs, and I then sent me to a real eye doctor.
He examined me and told me that, basically, I have bacteria eating my corneas. Like teeny tiny zombies. Awesome. Probably strep. He said I'm really lucky, because they're not congregating around the center, but in little blobs around the sides. center=blindness. I have to put antibiotic drops in my eyes constantly and I'm banned from contact lenses until further notice. I have to go back in on Monday and 1)make sure my eyeballs aren't melting out of their sockets and 2)get new glasses.
He then told me that I really have no business wearing contacts ever again, and I should consider lasik in a couple of years. I got a lecture about sleeping in my contacts (which I've done for years) and not cleaning them properly (I'm allergic to regular contact solutions and have to use hypo-allergenic saline and soak my lenses every night in hydrogen peroxide. Which I don't because I'm lazy.). Yeah.
In other news...there really isn't other news. I'm starting to do research for my honors paper, which is bringing back all sorts of memories from my Chinese history class freshman year of high school. It's really novel to be examining a non-pagan tradition so thoroughly and to find it so engrossing. I've always thought of Buddhism as being on the other end of the religious spectrum from where I'm standing (and I think it still is, at its core), but it makes a lot more sense to me now and I can understand the appeal where I couldn't before. Plus the history in China is really interesting.
And it's not unlike studying Norse or Celtic traditions in that I still can't pronounce anyone's names.