Sarah Smile: Week 1: For-Real Friday

The past two weeks have been horrible!

I woke up on Monday, August 14th feeling something funky in my left eye, gave it a couple of wipes, and then drove over an hour to pick up two of my grandkids to bring them back for a Grama sleepover.

As the day progressed and I woke up the next morning, my eye worsened. I went to a family doctor and started taking drops. By Wednesday morning I had a full-on, looked-like-the-devil double eye infection. My eyes were swollen and weepy and felt like I had the entire beach in my eyes!

The week continued and my ability to be present with my family lessened. My friend and pharmacist graciously tried to counsel me via text, but my eyes were not getting any better.

The drops were not helping and on Sunday morning I learned how to get an emergency appointment with an eye doctor in the city. I was in terrible pain and just wanted it to end. The doctor checked my eyes and told me I had a severe case of double conjunctivitis. It could take anywhere from 1 week to 1 month to heal. I started to cry, which made the pain even worse.

She gave me new drops and sent me home, warning me that the virus was very contagious and that I should be very careful. I couldn't see to drive, and the pain drained my energy. I could physically feel my body running down and under attack.

I canceled clients and important meetings. I couldn’t go to my son-in-law’s sister’s wedding. I couldn’t go to the pool. Being out in the sunlight was excruciatingly uncomfortable, which meant no walks on the beach. I stayed inside. My son did my food shopping and took care of me. We spent a quiet Shabbat together. While I lay on the couch with warm compresses on my eyes, he read to me from the very meaningful book, Being Mortal - which I highly recommend!

Being in pain is exhausting. I live with chronic pain, so my threshold is high. But this felt different. It’s also a scary feeling of being vulnerable and out of control. When my body doesn't work as I expect or need it to, the pain and discomfort send me down a spiral of not wanting to do anything and just wanting life to end. I don’t want to go to sleep at night because I don’t want to wake up (if I sleep at all) in the same amount of pain. The fear of no change and having to endure another day of fighting pain creates high anxiety.

My mind starts to play tricks on me, making up stories of what if…

What if I lose my eyesight and can’t ever watch the sunset again?

What if I can’t see my beautiful children and grandchildren?

What if I can’t see to color or create anything?

What if I wake up blind and don’t know what to do?

What if…

I admit. I take my eyesight for granted. I take a pain-free moment for granted. I expect to be able to see, even with my daily gratitude of seeing the sunset. There is an unconscious expectation. I expect to wake up and be able to see.

Yesterday was the first time in 12 days that I had the energy to do anything.

The drops are working and along with the homeopathic remedy I found of using green tea bags on my eyes, the pain is almost gone.

12 days and although I still have some blurriness and eye crude, healing has begun to happen, even though I never thought it would.

So that was my hard thing for this week.

Moving on…

P.S>

The silver lining? Being stuck inside forced me to work on a new project that will be revealed soon! It might not be as perfect as I had hoped since I could barely see, but at least I got it done!