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| Hook and peg-leg, not pictured. |
I always thought it would be the alcohol that I drank that would hurt me, but no. The first alcohol related injury that sent me to the ER would actually be caused by a beer I did not drink. Here's the rundown of my little mishap the other day.
Monday started just like any other April day, it was warm and I was reporting for work, a noon to close shift. As I was taking in the sights and sounds of Dorchester St., I thought "What would life be like without my vision?" This came out of nowhere. Ex Nihilo. I didn't glimpse an old man bumping into a fire hydrant or a seeing eye dog or anything.. well maybe some Venetian blinds in a window
"What would you rather lose, your hair or you eyesight?", asked that part of the brain that exists simply to keep me irritated.
"Uh, my hair, moron! That's like Will Ferrell's Harry Carey asking Jeff Goldblum's astronomer whether he'd rather be the top scientist in his field or have mad cow disease."
Well that shut my brain up for awhile, and I thought nothing further about it. Later in the evening, as things were winding down at work, I thought it might be a good idea to stock bottles in the reach-in coolers. As I was stacking the Bud Lights, my head down looking into the darkness, I was blinded by a flash, deafened by a sound like a gun shot, and knocked to my knees with pain.
"Aw fuck! It hit me in the eye!" I yelled. I came out from under the bar, where a guest who had witness the action checked my eye, or what I assumed was merely a bloody, glass-slivered melange of sliced cornea and aqueous humor. Much to my relief, there was no glass (in fact a coworker later found the bottle otherwise intact) or bleeding. Much to my chagrin, I couldn't see much of anything and was in crippling pain. After informing the manager on duty, I, like a good bartender, went along with closing duties to the best of my ability. Finally I had enough, left the rest of the close to the other bartender* and took a cab home.
"Home?!" You might ask, and rightly so. "Why the hell didn't you go to the hospital?!" Well, the reasons are several, and stupid. Primarily, however, I was relying upon my Wolverine*-like healing factor. I have a resistance to trauma and illness that has kept me out of the doctor's office for the better part of 15yrs despite a preternatural proclivity to accidents. So I just went to bed with a bag of frozen peas on my eye.
The next day I was off, and in terrible pain. This was "open the refrigerator and the light from it hurts so badly that I almost take a knee" pain. I turned of the TV to watch "How It's Made". They were making, I kid you not, a fake eye for a glaucoma patient. "Well, at least I don't have glaucoma!" Then I did what any sensible person would do, changed the channel to "River Monsters". It hurt to have my eye closed, it hurt to have my eye open, it hurt so badly I had to turn the back-light of the television off and it still hurt. At this point I should have gone to the ER. But my girlfriend had bought tickets to "Book of Mormon" four months ago for that night, and damned if I was going to let major eye trauma stop me from going.
That's right, I went to a musical. First, I 'McGuyver'ed an eye-patch out of Brawny Basic floral printed paper towels and duct tape. Then I walked to Andrew Square to catch the Red Line. It would be fair to say I got some strange looks, paper towels duct-taped to my face and all. In fact it was rush-hour, and the only two open seats in the train car were the two next to me.
Once off the train, I made haste to the nearest CVS, and to the pharmacy where a rather flamboyant young pharmacist looked at me and hung up the phone saying
"Yeaaah, I'm going to have to call you right back. Hi, can I help you?"
"Yeah, I got hit in the eye by an exploding Bud Light bottle and I need an eyepatch."
"So, it's like just watery and red?" He took a quick look at it.
"Yes." I lied.
"Well, you could go with the medical white-bandage eye-patch which looks kinda..mmmm. Or you could go with the pirate eye-patch, which I think looks kinda tough and bad-ass!" I went with the pirate eye-patch.
I met up with my girlfriend at the theater lobby, and she guided me around like a seeing eye dog to our seats. I spent two hours at the Boston Opera House stubbly and eye-patched, looking like Snake Plisskin with curly hair and a more sensible outfit. It says a lot for the show that I was able to enjoy it immensely in my condition. Afterwards it was a couple of medicinal "Diamondbacks"* and straight home.
The next day I was feeling better, enough to sleepwalk through a slow shift at work, and so I decided that my decision to not go seek a professional opinion was actually the right one. Everything still kind of looked like it was underwater through the left eye alone, but I could read with it a bit. Of course my GF, my friends, everybody on my Facebook feed, my Mom, my boss, and Sadie from the market across the street all demanded that I go to a doctor. Thursday I relented, and she and I (my girlfriend, not the woman from the market) went to the MEEI (Mass Eye Ear Infirmary) to finally get it checked out*.
I won't get into the boring details, but the exam went great at first. Then the doctor actually looked INTO my eye. The retina was in place (nice!) but there was damage to the optic nerve, and some blood, as well as an inflamed cornea (responsible for the 'underwater' effect). She started typing on her computer. Then she asked if my family had a history of glaucoma. (No! Oh Science no!) Then she started typing for a disconcerting amount of time (and I thought I was out of the woods!). She told me it was amazing that I had 20/40 vision considering the amount of trauma I had undergone. I asked her if she was familiar with Wolverine, then explained my similarities to the fictional character.
And she told me I may have glaucoma, and prescribed some eye-drops for the inflammation that can cause.. glaucoma. I won't know until I can get a screening in a month or two. My follow-up visit went well, and a new doctor (when I related to him what had happened he said "That's a new one!") told me my vision had improved in that 48 hours.
"SNIKT! SNIKT!"*
Well, that's my story. The lesson would be, I guess, if a little voice in your head asks you if you would rather lose your hair or your eyesight, always respond 'eyesight!'. Trick the bastard. Also, have a mutant healing factor.. always have a mutant healing factor.
*Thanks, Danny!
*the comicbook character, not the vicious little animal
*Kevin at jm Curley's; applejack, rye, Chartreuse, I forget the rest
*Thanks, Soph!
*the sound of Wolverine's Adamantium claws deploying
