Sunday, February 12, 2006

Eye boogers

The human body has some of the grossest problem resolutions strategies ever. It's enemy - bacteria and viruses - are relentless true, but next time round I'd like to request a different attack plan.

Some strange little thing attacked me a little while ago. It was a minor nuisance really, a strange "high" sore throat (not the typical tonsil sore kind), inner ear pressure and the feeling that I might get a headache at any time. Just might though, no real pain, just annoyance at knowing at any second there might be real sickness coming.

Clearly I was far too indifferent to the effects this germ was having on my body. This was an attention seeking germ-oid that's for sure. It took my indifference and resolve to continue on as if nothing was wrong very personally. I offended the little bugger and he wanted revenge. There was no mistake I would feel his wrath for ignoring him.

Germy attacked my eyes. He rallied his troops and in a surprise attack took me down while i slept. I woke up with my eyes glued together with gunk. An attempt to clean said gunk out proved futile. A shower did manage to get rid of all the excess, but germy and his crew would not stop. I was not aware it was possible for a sinus infection to attack your eyes, but let me tell you that it is. Snot can come out your eyes. Believe me, eyes are none too happy about this happening. For one, you can't blow your eyes. When you have a runny nose, lightly wiping the bottom of your nostril isn't a very effective way of staying snot free, same applies for your eyes. Also, crazy eyelid swelling happens, and some serious red eyes. "Pink eye" does not even come close to accurately describing what attacked eyes look like.

Absolutely not enjoying doctors, especially medi-clinics (germy was smart and waited until Sunday to stage his attack) I held off going to the doctor for as long as possible. I surrendered. The eye snot was getting to the quantity that it was floating around in my eyes making seeing quite a problem. My eyes had turned into sockets of pain.

The trip to the medi-clinic was relatively painless. I didn't really understand what the doctor told me besides "eye infection, tonsils are fine, cold attacked your eyes, take drugs." Turns out these drugs had to come in the form of ointment. Germy wins another small victory. Eye ointment is gross. Essentially it's like squeezing vaseline in your eyes. Being that it's not runny, this is quite difficult as it's very easy to just blink and get it all over your eyelids and eyelashes. Also, when you finally do get it in your eyes, it's not exactly clear so you can't see for a bit. It took 4 days for my eyes to look almost normal again - in the war against germy, several blood vessls in my left eye were broken. They're still healing, though they've faded to a dull yellow and pink by today.

I'm so screwed when that pandemic finally hits...

Friday, February 03, 2006

backwards ne?

Feeling safe is a funny thing. I've travelled to some pretty sketchy countries, I teach in a school where there are kids carrying knives, I don't always lock my doors etc. But, in general, I feel safe.

Until I see a police officer or police car that is. Since moving to City Park area, I haven't really ever felt unsafe either. Until of course, I see the cops. One morning, very early i might add, one was doing a walk around the apartment complex behind me. Kinda feaked me out. Didn't help that the policeman didn't say anything to me. Then, a week or so ago, as I was coming home there was a cop car driving s-l-o-w-l-y down my block. Totally freaked me out. I felt scared just walking from my car to my front door. I almost phoned my roommate to tell her to have her bf walk her to our door, until i re-thought what a paranoid freak she can be and decided that might cause her to have a heart attack AND move out on me.

My question is, what is wrong with out law-enforcement, that they make us feel unsafe instead of the opposite? Maybe this should just be "what is wrong with me"? I'm well aware I could keep rambling on here, but I should do something a little more productive than blog for a little bit. : )