Sorry for the week lag in between. Last week at work was pretty crazy and my brain was pretty much shut down when I wasn't in the office.

I went back to the eye doc that Tuesday and he told me that my eyes were still inflamed. Not the same as an infection, but still inflamed. I got another dose of antibiotic drops and was still relegated to my glasses for another week. I braved it through and my eyes were feeling better through the weekend...

I went back to the doc again for another check up the next Tuesday (so at this point this is the third weekly appointment in a row) and he cleared me for contacts. Yay! I decided to wait until the next day to put them in. And it's a good thing I waited because come Tuesday afternoon, my eyes started to water and swell up YET AGAIN. After some differential thinking (a la House, M.D.) I deduced that it must be the air in the office that was causing the irritation, because I felt fine on the weekends and when I went home from work, and the discomfort always flared up again at the beginning of the workweek.

I moved to a temporary office for the rest of the week and my eyes felt much better - though still sore and probably mad at me for putting them through so much back and forth. Then Friday morning I went back to the eye doc AGAIN (twice in a week!) because I felt that I needed another round of antibiotics. I was right. He gave me another bottle, and a note requesting that I be moved to a different floor at work.

The different floor didn't happen but I was put in another temporary office closer to my team, and we got an air purifier for the office. Finally, my eyes cleared up and for the first time in an entire month my eyes felt completely normal and comfortable. I went back for one final checkup a week later and passed with flying colors! I could wear contacts again!

This was a little over a week ago. I'm still feeling fine - but I'm no longer going to be sitting in my temporary office. It's been requested that I return to my cube with the air purifier to see 'how things go' so as to avoid any semblance of undue hierarchy within the support team. I won't elaborate on the office politics here - but that's the reason I'm going back there. I hope my eyes will be fine.

I've experienced periods of ocular discomfort before, but it's never been this serious or dragged out this long. The amount of time I spent feeling unable to function at my full potential, or crying despite the fact that it only increased my irritation, or surrendering myself to other people because my vision was so impaired - really made me feel completely helpless. I spent almost $200 in doctor co-pays and eyedrops in the span of a month and had to ask my superiors to make concessions for me multiple times - something that I never feel comfortable doing.

The month I spent with my infection frightened me in a way that not many health issues have before - it changed my mood, my social energy, my functionality at work. It occupied my thoughts and drained my energy and I realized how much of a disability my vision really is. I can still wear contact lenses for now, and I will always have the option of glasses, but even wearing such highly prescriptive lenses handicaps me.

My subject line about Lasik was a joke - but only partly so. I think about all the money that I spend on my vision yearly without incidentals like this infection, and then after I factor in all of the emotional grief that comes from the infections and I really feel that dropping a load of money on Lasik should actually be worth it. Don't you?