I thought my eye problems were over. Au contraire.
Yesterday afternoon, my eyelid started to ache. Then in the evening, I noticed it was getting a bit swollen and red. It seemed to have worsened a bit overnight, but really didn't bother me much today. Just by chance I mentioned it to a couple of my coworkers and they wanted to see it, so they came around to my desk (we had been talking over the wall). I wasn't even going to call the doctor, but Fiona and Heidi thought maybe I should, so I called. They said to come down to the office right away.
Well, there's an infection in my eyelid, which apparently is quite serious. My eye doctor was quite concerned and although he didn't actually say this, it sounded like I could die if the infection crossed a barrier to my brain. Nice. What happened was that after he removed the infected ingrown eyelash (two days ago), the site blocked up and the infection started spreading within my eyelid. Because of the blockage, the antibiotic drops I'd been using weren't reaching the infection.
He prescribed an antibiotic ointment to use at night and told me to hold a hot compress (a facecloth with hot water) on my eye for 10 minutes at a time, three to four times a day. It needs to be as hot as I can stand it to draw out the infection. Also, he said I needed to get a prescription for an oral antibiotic from my doctor--right away.
So... I went straight from the optometrist's office to my GP's office. You wouldn't believe the crappy reception I got from the receptionist. She said "we're not a walk-in clinic" and "you should have made an appointment" and "you should have phoned first" in a really snarky tone. I was NOT happy. I know what would've happened if I had phoned first; she would have said that they absolutely cannot see me today, so go to a walk-in clinic.
As I waited for the doctor, I got more and more upset. In the past year, they have told me too many times that I or Madeline could not be seen by a doctor in that office because they were all booked up. Also, earlier this year, they rescheduled three appointments I'd made for myself and the girls. And, when we do have an appointment, we generally have to wait at least an hour to see the doctor. It's ridiculous. I had been unhappy before, but today I just snapped; I told the doctor (the one in the office whom I'd never seen before) that I was extremely unhappy with how this office has treated me. I started to cry too, which was probably partly due to the disturbing news about my eye infection and the fact that I'd only had about 4.5 hours of sleep last night (Madeline was inconsolable in the middle of the night, I think from teething).
The doctor actually took the time to discuss the office situation with me (5000 patients and only one full-time and one part-time doctor until August) and provided some suggestions for when I want to see a doctor on short notice--call early, leave a message for the doctor, ask to speak to the nurse, call outside of office hours to speak to the doctor on call, even go to emergency, if necessary. Oh, how interesting! Why couldn't they have mentioned some of these options to me sooner, rather than just quickly saying "go to a walk-in clinic" every time I call with a concern?!
Anyhow, back to the eye problem... if it gets any worse, or I get a high fever, I'll need immediate attention; otherwise, antibiotic eye drops four times a day, antibiotic ointment at night, antibiotic pills three times a day, and hot compress for 10 minutes three/four times a day. Gee, what a lovely way to spend my extra long weekend (tomorrow is a holiday and I'm taking Friday off). Plus, I have to see the GP again in one week, and she's also booking me to see an opthamologist (but who knows when that'll be). Thank goodness we didn't try to get pregnant this month! It would be brutal to be in the first trimester and have to deal with all this on top of it.
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