This post is about a needle in my eye...Not kidding.
Warning: this is gross and may make you cringe...a lot.
Now, come to think of it, I should have probably thought of myself as a feak for the size of the sty that I had. I should have. Maybe I did. Maybe that's what sold the thing. I can't tell you for sure. But it was huge. Like a pencil eraser.
Back up for a moment. I don't like doctors. I don't think they know much. Case in point, when I was a kid, I would fake sickness once every three weeks or so, and in each of those cases, I would stay home for 3 days. My reasoning was this. If you can get one, why not go for two, and if you can get two, three's the obvious next step. Four's too much really. With four you really need some kind of sickness and not just a vague group of symptoms but you can be plagued by three no problem, especially if you are willing to admit on the third day, maybe I just woke up with it and it wore off, you're right, mom, I really probably could have gone to school. You know...after you've already stayed home all day.
In any case, the doctors, after having seen me with my "stomach ache" one too many times decided that I had an ulcer. No empirical evidence, just the word of an eleven year old kid. I'm sure that somewhere on a medical record, I still have ulcers.
My reasoning is this: any idiot would have figured out that the eleven year old kid didn't really have anything wrong with him. The doctor couldn't. Thus, the doctor was a special kind of idiot. What's worse is that it wasn't A doctor. We had Kaiser and so we saw an army of doctors, so I fooled the entire pediatric staff of the Pleasanton Kaiser who should have their licenses revoked for such gross incompetance. Does my story, by the way, explain why people can get synthetic morphine without having anything wrong with them. Yes. Yes it does. I got the pain killers they were giving away at the time. Nothing like todays pharmaceuticals, but heh...
Anywho, the sty. I was 19 or so. I had a chain on my arm that had been cinched and could not be removed without wire cutters. I had long hair. I wore Mr. Bungle t-shirts and went to concerts in the city where I liked to mosh. I was, in short, tough. Or...you know, I thought I was tough, and with tough must come ugly, so I let the sty flourish.
Now, I probably could have used a hot compress that would have been the best idea, but, I guess, at some point the skin over the sty gets thicker and then there's no way to use the hot compress, so I had to go to the doctor who took one look at my sty, left the room, and returned with two needles.
'Stop reading here,' is my suggestion.
I took one look at the two needles and said, "so why two needles?"
"One's to numb the sty, and the other is to draw out the fluid."
"Well, if you're going to shove a needle in my eye, I think I'd rather just have you put one in. I mean, I'm going to feel the first needle no matter what, so why not just use the one needle."
I felt that given the gross incompetency of Kaiser doctors and the damage that one might cause by, say, shoving a needle into my eye, I might halve the chances of their being a needle shoved into my eye by telling the doctor that I only needed the one needle rather than the two. The doctor at this point was tired of trying to explain the procedure to me (and let's face it, being a doctor at Kaiser, he probably didn't know the answer) and so he just gave in.
God that hurt. Like, you know the raw pain of a blister when it just pops. Yeah, that...but on my lower eyelid followed by a stinging pressure as he drew the fluid out.
That's enough to say. Like it took a while because...because he went slow...and all the while it really really hurt.
Then, without saying a word, he left the room...
And came back with another needle.
Because he hadn't got it all with the first one.
So, is there a moral to this story. No. Not really. I just thought I'd share with all of you a truly horrible moment. I mean, I'd like to say that the doctor was an idiot, and he probably was. After all, he might have said, "hey, we're going to numb the eye so that we can drain it with a number of needles...or he might have brought in a needle with a bigger capacity since clearly the problem here is that he underestimated the size of the sty and it would have really been pretty easy to just prepare for the worst case scenario (again, the more needles in my eye, the greater the risk). But then, I think I might want to mention that I wasn't really that smart here either, and for two reasons really.
First of all, they're Kaiser. So, I mean, they've misdiagnosed me with an ulcer, diabetes, and asthma now. Why am I trusting them to get this right.
But the really stupid moment happenned about a year later when I decided that I didn't need the doctor at all, and armed with a needle, and a lighter, I took care of the sty all by myself by looking in a mirror with one eye open. Now, that was stupid.
Now, come to think of it, I should have probably thought of myself as a feak for the size of the sty that I had. I should have. Maybe I did. Maybe that's what sold the thing. I can't tell you for sure. But it was huge. Like a pencil eraser.
Back up for a moment. I don't like doctors. I don't think they know much. Case in point, when I was a kid, I would fake sickness once every three weeks or so, and in each of those cases, I would stay home for 3 days. My reasoning was this. If you can get one, why not go for two, and if you can get two, three's the obvious next step. Four's too much really. With four you really need some kind of sickness and not just a vague group of symptoms but you can be plagued by three no problem, especially if you are willing to admit on the third day, maybe I just woke up with it and it wore off, you're right, mom, I really probably could have gone to school. You know...after you've already stayed home all day.
In any case, the doctors, after having seen me with my "stomach ache" one too many times decided that I had an ulcer. No empirical evidence, just the word of an eleven year old kid. I'm sure that somewhere on a medical record, I still have ulcers.
My reasoning is this: any idiot would have figured out that the eleven year old kid didn't really have anything wrong with him. The doctor couldn't. Thus, the doctor was a special kind of idiot. What's worse is that it wasn't A doctor. We had Kaiser and so we saw an army of doctors, so I fooled the entire pediatric staff of the Pleasanton Kaiser who should have their licenses revoked for such gross incompetance. Does my story, by the way, explain why people can get synthetic morphine without having anything wrong with them. Yes. Yes it does. I got the pain killers they were giving away at the time. Nothing like todays pharmaceuticals, but heh...
Anywho, the sty. I was 19 or so. I had a chain on my arm that had been cinched and could not be removed without wire cutters. I had long hair. I wore Mr. Bungle t-shirts and went to concerts in the city where I liked to mosh. I was, in short, tough. Or...you know, I thought I was tough, and with tough must come ugly, so I let the sty flourish.
Now, I probably could have used a hot compress that would have been the best idea, but, I guess, at some point the skin over the sty gets thicker and then there's no way to use the hot compress, so I had to go to the doctor who took one look at my sty, left the room, and returned with two needles.
'Stop reading here,' is my suggestion.
I took one look at the two needles and said, "so why two needles?"
"One's to numb the sty, and the other is to draw out the fluid."
"Well, if you're going to shove a needle in my eye, I think I'd rather just have you put one in. I mean, I'm going to feel the first needle no matter what, so why not just use the one needle."
I felt that given the gross incompetency of Kaiser doctors and the damage that one might cause by, say, shoving a needle into my eye, I might halve the chances of their being a needle shoved into my eye by telling the doctor that I only needed the one needle rather than the two. The doctor at this point was tired of trying to explain the procedure to me (and let's face it, being a doctor at Kaiser, he probably didn't know the answer) and so he just gave in.
God that hurt. Like, you know the raw pain of a blister when it just pops. Yeah, that...but on my lower eyelid followed by a stinging pressure as he drew the fluid out.
That's enough to say. Like it took a while because...because he went slow...and all the while it really really hurt.
Then, without saying a word, he left the room...
And came back with another needle.
Because he hadn't got it all with the first one.
So, is there a moral to this story. No. Not really. I just thought I'd share with all of you a truly horrible moment. I mean, I'd like to say that the doctor was an idiot, and he probably was. After all, he might have said, "hey, we're going to numb the eye so that we can drain it with a number of needles...or he might have brought in a needle with a bigger capacity since clearly the problem here is that he underestimated the size of the sty and it would have really been pretty easy to just prepare for the worst case scenario (again, the more needles in my eye, the greater the risk). But then, I think I might want to mention that I wasn't really that smart here either, and for two reasons really.
First of all, they're Kaiser. So, I mean, they've misdiagnosed me with an ulcer, diabetes, and asthma now. Why am I trusting them to get this right.
But the really stupid moment happenned about a year later when I decided that I didn't need the doctor at all, and armed with a needle, and a lighter, I took care of the sty all by myself by looking in a mirror with one eye open. Now, that was stupid.
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
1:13 PM
1 Comments:
Aww, man, you stopped the story! I wanted to read about how you jammed yourself with the needle. You know, someone should put together an anthology of disgusting self-surgery stories. You could flesh out this one... I have that disgusting poison ivy story froma while back. We'd just need about 50 more for a book.
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