My eye went to Chile and came back with a disease

On Wednesday, we had inventory at work. This means a very long day of counting, recounting, scanning, verifying and other monotonous tasks. It should have been easy, but about halfway through the evening my eye started to throb. I couldn't see anything. I kept asking people, "Do you see anything?" The pain was just unreal. I have never been hit in the eye, but I am pretty sure this is what it would feel like. Around my eyeball itself felt like someone took a knife and sliced it open. Every time my eye moved there was stabbing pain. When I made an expression that involved my eyes, I would feel like I was kicked in the stomach. It was ridiculous.

I was sure I hadn't hit it on anything. Yes, I am a klutz and it is very easy for me to have a few bruises consistently. And having a random pain is not uncommon, but my eye???

The only thing I could come up with was maybe my cat had kicked me in the middle of the night. Izabel tends to crawl up on my chest and lay on me like a shawl - with her feet by my neck and head and her head on my stomach. She occasionally steps on my windpipe and other painful parts. I have figured out how to sleep through this 15 pound cat crawling up on me and walking around til she finds a comfy place. So it is possible she kicked me . . . . right?

When I finally got home from inventory it was early the next morning. I took the opportunity to flush my eye with lots of eye saline. Hoping it was maybe a stray cat hair in my eye or something that would disappear in the night. But in the morning it was still throbbing and stabbing pain.

By mid morning, I gave up and called the doctor. Thankfully they got me right in.

When I went in the office, they had me perform an eye test. Oh yes, the one where they have a four foot letter E. WHO MISSES THAT? I couldn't see past the third line. And I had lasik!! I was praying it wasn't anything serious.

By the time my doctor came in, she had this look like she just knew what it was. She performed a few tests, flipping my eyelid around, putting eye drops in and checking for foreign objects. She made a lot of "hmmms", but I am sure she knew what she was looking at.

She finally says, "Heidi you have a Chilean eye."

"WHAT?" What could that be? It sounds like a foreign disease. Did my eye have an affair I didn't know about? Who was this handsome beauty who made my eye stray and come back with a disease?

She explained a bit about it, but overall what I heard was . . . . we don't know what causes it; we can't do anything to fix it and it will eventually go away on it's own.

UHM WHAT?

Why do I always get the diseases that doctors know nothing about and can't cure?

Her answer was, "Well I could numb your eye?"

Seriously?!?!? That sucks. I'd rather suffer through the pain.

I asked the Nurse to write it down, so I could research it. It not a Chilean eye. It is called a Chalazion. Normal eye glands swell up from crap and it becomes ugly.

So here I am with a defective eye. It is a bit cloudy and my vision is off in the far side of my right eye. It is swollen and red like a worm crawled up and took a nap in my eye. I lived through a day of work before giving up and hitting the pharmacy for over the counter eye gel. Oh relief. It really helps. The pain is not so severe. It doesn't stab me when I roll or move my eye and blinking doesn't make me want to pass out.

The morning my boyfriend was coming to visit for the weekend the song in my head was, "Will you still love me tomorrow?" I feel like the guy from Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Yes, I am feeling sorry for myself. Or at least I was.

Now a couple of days later, gel in the eye and a heating pad for the eye couple times a day. I am doing okay. I love it when people are talking to me and then stop, at which point they have realized my eye is gross. They stop and swallow, then slowly raise their hand to point at my eye. And then proceed to ask me, "Your eye . . .?"

Tuesday - Tune In & Teaser


YO TUESDAY!! It's been a few weeks since I have participated. Last week I really wanted to post a Whitney Houston song, but alas, it has been INSANE. I have been working long 10+ hour work days due to inventory. I have driven to other cities to help them with their inventory. I have been whipping my store and my people into shape. Along with us hiring like six new people who I have been mercilessly training. Poor lasses!

On continuous loop when I remember to push the play button!
It Will Rain by Bruno Mars




Reading a really fantastic book right now and so many more I want to check out from work, but with inventory I cannot. I am so excited for Butterfly Clues by Kate Ellison and Fever by Lauren DeStefano and The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M Danforth. OMG the list goes on and on.


The Witch's Daughter
by Paula Brackston


"Now roll it up and come and stand beside me close to the fire. First, I will say a prayer to speak to those who might linger between worlds. If I help them to find their true home, they may help us when our moment comes. After that, we will consign your writing to the flames."



Review - Ashes by Isla Bick

Title: Ashes
Ashes Trilogy #1
Author: Ilsa J. Bick
Publisher: Egmontusa
Publish Date: Sept 8, 2011
Hardcover, 480 pages

GoodReads
Barnes and Noble (nookbook $7)
Amazon

Starting with the obvious, this book is gore to the max. It has stories about flesh eating zombies. That said, I am so surprised I liked this book. I truly do not care for gore. Ew! It's gross. And the better the the author, the better the descriptions, the grosser it is. I don't want to read about a human turned zombie, kneeling down licking the fingers they just dragged through the oozing eye of a dead person.

On the other hand, this book had a major amount of humanity. It talks about what would happen should we have a sort of apocalypse; some die, some live and (of course) some become flesh eating zombies.

Main character: Alex, a woman set off on a journey to hike a mountain with her parent's ashes on her. Not only that she has a tumor in her head that is killing her and she has finally decided to forgo anymore treatments. This is her last hurrah. I like her. She is honest, fresh and wholesome. She is sweet and not afraid to speak her mind. Yet, I love the kindness she shows the strangers she encounters.

Enter Tom and Ellie, a grandfather and granddaughter who are out and about doing similar things as Alex. Trying to connect after Ellie's father died in the war. All she has left is anger and a dog she isn't too fond of.

With this one occurrence, they are pushed together for survival. They do not necessarily choose each other out of want, but rather the need. Alex allows Ellie to form her own opinions and then once decided, she is there for her. Even as a total stranger she realizes the losses Ellie endures at such a young age. The compassion is wonderful.

Sadly they never really tell what happened originally to wreak the havoc that occurs. There is much speculation about an EMP burst, a nuclear bomb. The fact is something terrible has happened that has destroyed the earth, or the parts they inhabit.

After the incident, Alex is different. Her headaches are nearly gone and she can smell from amazing distances. She knows something is going on in her body, but not exactly sure what. There is also no reason as to why some people died, some people changed and some people lived. They find a connection that teens who are going through puberty could now become zombies, but does that mean Ellie will change? They even encounter a man who has a friend who died, a friend who was fine for a couple of days and then BOOM instant zombie and he had to kill him before he was attacked. Will Alex change? What about the people Alex and Ellie encounter, will they change unexpectedly?

The ending is so amazingly wrong I couldn't help but be completely stunned and really excited to read the next one. In a very demented way. This book was so off and yet, I truly loved it. It's like the scary movie I cannot watch so I put my hands over my eyes and then peak through my fingers.

Summary -
It could happen tomorrow . . .

An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device, wiping out every computerized system, and killing billions.

Alex hiked into the woods to say good-bye to her dead parents and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what happened after the pulse crushes her to the ground, Alex meets up with Tom—a young soldier—and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the EMP.

For this improvised family and the others who are spared, it’s now a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human.

Author Ilsa J. Bick crafts a terrifying and thrilling novel about a world that could be ours at any moment, where those left standing must learn what it means not just to survive, but to live amidst the devastation.