Santa Lucia, patroness of the blind, pray for me!
Holy smokes. After what we're calling the "Cosmetic 9-1-1 incident" and ER visit a week or so ago, I thought I'd hit my quota for random ocular trauma for, say, at least a decade.
Not so!
Today we went in for our 6 month dental visits. As I received praise for yet another cavity-free year during my cleaning, disaster struck. A huge chunk of nasty abrasive dental polish flew off the spinny-polisher-thingy and shot straight up and under my upper eyelid in the (now formerly) good eye.
It was horrible...my second scratched cornea - minty fresh exfoliation in this instance - in as many weeks. Fortunately, I still had plenty of antibiotic eyedrops and rinse left, so I decided to self-treat and forego another ER visit. Why? Vanity, thy name is Kit.
As it turns out, the local ER Chief doc is a fellow quasi-Catholic high school parent who treated me at the ER after the Boy-meets-Mamma's-mascara-wand episode, and with whom I've struck up a nice little chatting-at-basketball-games acquaintance. He has kindly asked after my visual health at each of the games since, and he, his lovely wife, and I have discussed their various boy teenager issues and my Cheerleader teenager issues. Somehow I am not sure a second eye-related trauma in as many weeks would seem entirely coincidental...although those who know me well would laugh and say it's par for the course! I don't want to become known to them as the creepy "Eye Lady" who frequents the ER between basketball games with yet another bizarre eye injury. To be safe, I did chat with my lady doc buddy (after she got done laughing at me) and she assured me I'd survive, so long as the pain did not increase, etc.
What am I supposed to be learning from this, dear Lord?!?
St. Lucy was an early Christian martyr historically believed to have been tortured, burned, and blinded before being murdered courtesy of Diocletian. There is a lovely Scandanavian tradition wherein a young girl is selected to dress as St. Lucia, wearing a headdress of pine and candles to symbolize the fire that did not immediately kill her, and to bring light to conquer darkness. She also brings candy, saffron or anise-flavored coffee-cakes and presents to the little kids. Her feast day was December 13th, the day we had three major school events to attend from 9 am to after 11 pm, or I'd've mentioned her sooner - I love the traditions associated with her feast day.
Maybe this is her gentle way of reminding me...
3 comments:
Man, what a bummer! Another way to commemmorate would be to watch "A Christmas Story", especially near the end when Ralphie does nearly knock his eye out with the BB gun!
I read that St Lucy is also the patron saint of salespeople. So I pray to her, being a salesman and all, but I haven't found anything yet as to why she's given that patronage.
I hope your eye heals soon - perhaps you should invest in some goggles or something! ;-)
Well, you both have a great point about the goggles. My dad's a retired dentist, and when the AIDS issue arose in the 80's, he used safety glasses and offered them to patients for the rest of his career. (There's always water and potentially blood spraying about during a cleaning or when a cavity is being filled) So I should've known better - it just never dawned on me. The hygienist was horrified.
And Dr. K. - you're dead-on...I am generally pretty darn healthy and sturdy, but when I go, I go big - I have the worst luck and manage to come up with the most bizarre maladies...
Ex.: google "sublingual caruncle" (Excellent)
Now, imagine me at my favorite pizza joint back in San Diego's Little Italy, chomping down into some downright scalding pizza sauce, and awaking the next day with neck the size of a professional football player's....I had the Navy's finest completely bowled over!
And that's just one example, mind you.
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