Doctor My Eye

Last night, my eye was bothering me so much that I just went to bed around 8:30 or so. It was aching and burning, watering and itching, and I could not get it to stop -- despite the fact that I'd taken two loratadine pills for my allergies earlier in the evening and an aspirin as an anti-inflammatory precaution. What it needed, apparently, was to be closed and in the dark for many hours. So that's what I did -- I went to sleep.

This morning it's better, though not by a lot. it still aches, it's still blurry, sensitive to light, and irritated (like it was when the pineapple cut it open before), but it's not itching, burning, or watering. So I did some research and looked into the issue (no pun intended) and basically boiled it down to two things: either I've scratched it again while rubbing it a few days ago, and it just needs to heal up over the course of a few days, or I have allergic conjunctivitis -- basically, allergy-based pinkeye, which can be triggered by allergies to basically anything (and isn't contagious or discharge-producing like the viral or bacterial varieties, and won't generally transfer to the other eye as well). Or both. Regardless, in any case, according to all of the information I've found, it'll take a few days to heal up and get back to normal. As it's not bothering me anywhere near as much this morning as it was yesterday and Thursday, that's a good sign.

There's nothing in my eye, and no visible injury or scratch that can be found; I pried my eyelids open last night and looked around with a high-powered LED flashlight to see if I could find anything, and aside from the eye being red and bloodshot (obviously) everything looks normal. As my allergies have been terrible this past month or so, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if it's allergy-based pinkeye or if it's getting really irritated by a little microscopic scratch in there somewhere that I can't see.

"Maybe there's scarring left over from the pineapple," Daisy said.

"Maybe, but I doubt it," I replied. "If that were the case, my vision probably would've been permanently affected on some level after that healed up, and it wasn't."

It did take a while for my vision to un-blur and return to normal after the pineapple incident, but it did, and I've been perfectly fine since...up until this week, anyway.

There's nothing that can really be done for it but to get rest and let it heal; I have eye drops that Daisy got for me when I hurt said eye with the pineapple, and I used some of them last night, but they didn't really do much but make it water and ache a bit more. Sleep seems to help it more than anything else, as does staying out of bright light. There seems to be little else I can do but wait.

In other news, last night I finalized my lesson plans for this coming week and printed out the sheets/handouts I needed to get ready for my classes. There's a few other things I need to do regarding my classes, such as make sure some files are uploaded to Blackboard and, of course, the grading I need to do of my 011 students' journals and rewrites and the PSAs for my 210 class. Everything else that's class-related has already been taken care of.

Because I went to bed so early last night, I got up at 5AM today. This means that I'll probably take a nap this afternoon at some point again, if only because my eye(s) will need rest after I work on the aforementioned grading. I'd like to get all of that done today if only I can, so that I can have time to work on my taxes tomorrow and/or Monday.

My health insurance stuff has been solidified, though it's mostly pointless anyhow. As I don't know if I'll return in the fall (or if I'll even be living in Kansas past, say, June) my coverage basically begins as soon as the paperwork is signed and put in, and ends on May 31. Yeah, seriously. It's stupid. I told them not to do the double-withdrawals for the summer as I cannot see that far ahead yet and don't know where I'll be, and if I do end up staying at the university in the fall, I'd have to re-up everything again then anyway. So, basically, I'm getting about a month and a half of insurance coverage, and that's it. It's pathetic.

On the plus side, for that time I have dental and vision coverage, though it's not like I'll get to use it anyway -- it doesn't cover much, the plan is basic, and if I couldn't afford to go to any doctor before, guess what? I still can't, 'cause I'd still have like a $40 or so co-pay out of pocket. It's for reasons like this where, if I've ever needed any sort of medical care, I've always gone to the health department's "free clinic" option. When it came to actually picking an option for the insurance, it was basically a toss-up as they really don't differ that much based on plan or provider.

It also turns out that I can't e-sign the paperwork as requested, because the forms won't let me. I'll have to physically print and sign them, and send them over to the office on Tuesday via campus mail. The HR guy said to sign them and take a photo with my phone, except, well, my phone is not a smartphone and doesn't do that. There's a camera on it, yes, but good luck reading any text that the camera would snapshot, because it's a very old phone with very low resolution. My actual camera doesn't capture fine details like that too well either, so again, pointless. I hate that everyone assumes that everyone else has a smartphone now. Not everyone does, and not everyone wants one. I don't have one, and I really don't want one.

Daisy keeps telling me that once I get one, I won't know or remember how I lived without one. No thanks. I hate the telephone. I hate the fact that nobody knows how to socialize anymore because everyone has their faces buried in their phones. I hate the fact that I can't teach a class without students texting back and forth or playing games on their phones. I hate the concept of being plugged into everything and being reachable at all times, because fuck that, if I want to be available I'll let you know. There's a reason my cell phone is turned off or silenced most of the time: it's because I hate it and hate the fact that I need it at all. The last thing this already terrible society needed was constant internet access on their telephones, available anywhere anyone went.

Anyway. Whoa, did I get off track there.

So I'll have to do the paper forms once I get back to campus, and they'll just have to wait on them to get them in. Again, there's not like I can do anything about that, and overall the entire process is mostly pointless anyway. It's basically me saying "here, let me give you $60 or so I'll never see again because you asked me to fill out some bullshit forms for health coverage I'll never, ever use before it expires." Because, honestly, that's what it is. Once my employment contract with the university comes to an end in May, so does the coverage, so...I don't really see what they're trying to accomplish here. It seems like health insurance masturbation.

It's chilly this morning, but not overly cold; yesterday afternoon it got up to 61, which felt wonderful while it was that warm. Today we're supposed to get a rain/snow mix for most of the day and it's barely going to get out of the 30s. Next week, however, once I go back to class, it's supposed to be in the upper 60s, if not 70s for a few days. While that's probably not warm enough to wear shorts and flip-flops, as it'll still be cold in the mornings, I do welcome it. I want the nightmare of cold and snow and up-down temperatures to be over, if only for my allergies' sake and for the sake of my eye actually feeling normal again once those allergies go away.

The cats have been fighting like crazy this morning; over what, I don't know, but I've had to break them up twice. Some days, they're just little assholes for no reason. They're all sitting with me now in my Man Cave upstairs as I type this, and seem to be getting along okay, but I'm not going to pretend I know how feline politics works when I don't even speak or understand their language.

On that note, I'm going to get something to eat and begin my grading so that I can go back to sleep eventually and rest my eye some more. Daisy is gone to her sister's for the day, as her niece is having her birthday party this morning. I don't know when she'll get to sleep before she has to go back to work tonight again, but she's already left and I probably won't be in contact with her that much all day and night because of that.