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Day Negative One
Aug. 16-18, 2012
This travel log is going to have to begin with the story of why we almost didn’t go. I guess I kind of just ruined the drama for you by telling you the almost part, but I think you’re going to survive. You see, Garrett and I decided to go to a Raiders game in Arizona the Friday before we left to go to France. This seemed like a good idea at the time — probably just because Garrett loves football and so anything football related is a good idea.
Here was the plan: leave Provo Thursday around 6:00 p.m., arrive in Arizona Friday around 6:00 a.m., go to Raiders game Friday at 7:00 p.m., leave Arizona Saturday around 8:00 a.m., arrive in Provo Saturday around 8:00 p.m., go to France Sunday afternoon. Everything went well until the Raiders game on Friday. We were tired, but everything was going to work out perfectly. However, at the beginning of the Raiders game I began to notice something weird. It seemed like smoke was coming from the top, right-hand-corner of the stadium. I looked up — the smoke was still in the top, right-hand-corner.
I leaned over to Garrett.
“Honey, I think my contact is fogging up,” I intelligently deducted.
“Take it out,” he practically said.
“I can’t. I don’t have anywhere to put it.”
We were at an impasse. I had a foggy contact and nowhere to put it. It bothered me a bit, but I’d been having problems with my contacts, so it wasn’t that big of a deal to me. For the rest of the game I chose to suffer in silence. No one likes a complainer.
When the game was over (Raiders lost — boo.) we walked back to the busses to get to our car. Garrett noticed I was starting to fall behind.
“You okay?” he said.
“Kind of. My contact has completely and totally fogged over, so I really can’t see out of my right eye, it’s dark and I think the Raiders fans are going to kill us,” I didn’t say.
Sorry, I’m just not that smart. Instead, I took the martyr approach.
“My contact is a little foggy,” and so I suffered on.
By the time we made it home I honestly could not see out of it and I had some pain in my eye, but, in my stupidity, I thought I could just sleep it off.
(Side note: when a took out my contact that night, I might have needed to pull to get it off my eye. More on that later.)
Fast-forward to sometime the next morning when it was still dark outside and everyone should have been sleeping. I don’t remember much, but Garrett told me he woke up to me rolling around in the bed while moaning and crying. I do remember that my eye hurt. A lot. I was pretty sure that by the end of the day I would be blind in one eye — and who really wants to be blind in one eye (Sorry Grandma!).
Garrett went and told his parents, who offered to let me use some drops John had prescribed to him. I don’t normally use other people’s prescriptions, but I was extremely desperate. When that didn’t work, John and Garrett gave me a blessing. I was able to fall back asleep, but it seems God’s plan for my getting better was for me to get worse. By the time everyone had woken the next morning, I couldn’t open my eyes or move them in any direction. After calling my parents (who told me to go to the ER), Garrett’s brother, Justin — a doctor — examined my eye.
It was confirmed — I needed to go to the hospital just to ensure it wasn’t something really bad. A bit later, Garrett led me out to the car and Connie, Garrett and I went to Justin’s ER.
When we finally got there, the lady (I assume, I couldn’t see her) asked me to open my eye. Though I tried to tear my eyelids apart with my hands, I couldn’t handle the pain of opening the lids. Once back (no wait!), I met the doctor.
“My hands stretched out, if you’d like to grab it,” he said.
In order to examine my eye, he put in some super cool numbing drops called tetracaine (it’s like lidocaine for the eye). Don’t worry, this part is important. It was wonderful to open my eyes again. He then looked at everything. It turns out I had ulcers on my eye. To me, that sounds really, really gross. It doesn’t look gross, but ulcer is just a gross word. Who wants them on their eyes?
The doctor was a really cool guy. He had talked to me a little bit about my CRPS and had found out that I don’t take pain medicine. When it came time to leave, he told us he felt conflicted. Normally, he would give me a prescription for some sort of pain medicine to help with the eye pain. Since I couldn’t take pain medication, however, he didn’t know what to do.
“Here’s how it is,” he told us. “Every ER book you’ll ever read tells you never to give a patient tetracaine. It can slow down the healing process. However, since you can’t have pain meds, I’m just going to leave this bottle of tetracaine right here and we’re not going to know what happened to it. It just seems inhumane for me to let you leave with nothing with how much pain you were in when you came. Please, do not use this more than twice at the very most.”
I really feel like this man is a good doctor who knows how to read his patients. Because of our discussion, he knew I was someone who wouldn’t abuse pain meds. Yeah, it was a gamble for him, but I still haven’t used the drops. They’re just with me in case I get back to how bad I was.
Anyway, moral of this story is, don’t get gross ulcers on your eyes. If you do, you’ll have to drive for 12 hours from Arizona to Utah with your eyes closed while your husband leads you from place to place. Oh, and because you can’t do the final look through of your room, your husband will almost forget all your clothes and your camera right before your trip to Europe.
Fast-forward to sometime the next morning when it was still dark outside and everyone should have been sleeping. I don’t remember much, but Garrett told me he woke up to me rolling around in the bed while moaning and crying. I do remember that my eye hurt. A lot. I was pretty sure that by the end of the day I would be blind in one eye — and who really wants to be blind in one eye (Sorry Grandma!).
Garrett went and told his parents, who offered to let me use some drops John had prescribed to him. I don’t normally use other people’s prescriptions, but I was extremely desperate. When that didn’t work, John and Garrett gave me a blessing. I was able to fall back asleep, but it seems God’s plan for my getting better was for me to get worse. By the time everyone had woken the next morning, I couldn’t open my eyes or move them in any direction. After calling my parents (who told me to go to the ER), Garrett’s brother, Justin — a doctor — examined my eye.
It was confirmed — I needed to go to the hospital just to ensure it wasn’t something really bad. A bit later, Garrett led me out to the car and Connie, Garrett and I went to Justin’s ER.
When we finally got there, the lady (I assume, I couldn’t see her) asked me to open my eye. Though I tried to tear my eyelids apart with my hands, I couldn’t handle the pain of opening the lids. Once back (no wait!), I met the doctor.
“My hands stretched out, if you’d like to grab it,” he said.
In order to examine my eye, he put in some super cool numbing drops called tetracaine (it’s like lidocaine for the eye). Don’t worry, this part is important. It was wonderful to open my eyes again. He then looked at everything. It turns out I had ulcers on my eye. To me, that sounds really, really gross. It doesn’t look gross, but ulcer is just a gross word. Who wants them on their eyes?
The doctor was a really cool guy. He had talked to me a little bit about my CRPS and had found out that I don’t take pain medicine. When it came time to leave, he told us he felt conflicted. Normally, he would give me a prescription for some sort of pain medicine to help with the eye pain. Since I couldn’t take pain medication, however, he didn’t know what to do.
“Here’s how it is,” he told us. “Every ER book you’ll ever read tells you never to give a patient tetracaine. It can slow down the healing process. However, since you can’t have pain meds, I’m just going to leave this bottle of tetracaine right here and we’re not going to know what happened to it. It just seems inhumane for me to let you leave with nothing with how much pain you were in when you came. Please, do not use this more than twice at the very most.”
I really feel like this man is a good doctor who knows how to read his patients. Because of our discussion, he knew I was someone who wouldn’t abuse pain meds. Yeah, it was a gamble for him, but I still haven’t used the drops. They’re just with me in case I get back to how bad I was.
Anyway, moral of this story is, don’t get gross ulcers on your eyes. If you do, you’ll have to drive for 12 hours from Arizona to Utah with your eyes closed while your husband leads you from place to place. Oh, and because you can’t do the final look through of your room, your husband will almost forget all your clothes and your camera right before your trip to Europe.
And one more thing. I hate having to wear glasses all the time. Boo.
So that’s how we almost didn’t go to Europe.
So that’s how we almost didn’t go to Europe.
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