My Appendix Saved My Sight

We all know the story of my appendix. Moral of the story: if you seem sick or "off", do something about it. Don't let it get out of control and become a scary situation that could have been avoided.

And thanks to that lesson I learned when my appendix burst, my sight has been saved.*

Yesterday I thought I had a sty on my eyelid. I've had them before: my eyelid was a little irritated, it was slightly swollen, etc. A friend at kickball gave me great advice to get a hot compress on it. I did that before bed and hoped it would be better in the morning.

It was NOT. My eye was more swollen, and much more painful. I began to think that it was more than a sty, and I was glad that I was getting together with sister, MD, for dinner so that she could take a look at it. By 8am, I was glad that I was having lunch with one of my favorite doctors so that he could take a look at it rather than waiting until dinner. By 9am, I was making an appointment with an optometrist because it was REALLY making me worried. I didn't wear any makeup to work, and I was glad that I hadn't, because my eye was not doing well. I was starting to remind myself of Quasimodo.

I got to the appointment with the optometrist and she immediately said that I would need an antibiotic. She gave me an eye exam (which I haven't had since 1996...) and said that I pretty much had the best vision she's ever encountered (hence me not having an exam since 1996....). Then she wanted to take a closer look at my eye. At this point she was more concerned about the swelling she was seeing, and after a closer look said, "Oh, I can see this is much more than a sty. I'm so glad you came it. This is periorbital cellulitis". Since I don't know what that means, I just nodded my head. She continued, "There's nothing to be concerned about at this point, but if you would have let this go and get on the inside of your eyelid, you would have an ocular emergency and I'd be sending you to the ER".

Okay. This can be serious if I don't stay on top of it. At dinner, I was telling my sister about my day and she informed me that she once had a patient in the hospital for over three weeks who had a few surgeries thanks to periorbital cellulitis. Yikes. Not that I would have been in that same situation if I would have let this go, but I am glad that my appendix incident has made me more wisely cautious when it comes to my health. In other words, my appendix saved my sight.

In an effort to not be completely vain, I'm handling the instruction to not wear any makeup until Monday pretty well. I do feel silly not wearing makeup to work since I work in an industry that is pretty vain (entire TV episodes have been dedicated to how good-looking the people in my industry are....), but I'll manage (mostly by wearing sunglasses). I do plan on cheating a little, though. There is absolutely NO WAY I won't wear makeup when I go to Miss Minnesota on Saturday. Part of the fun of going is putting on fake lashes and doing my makeup all fancy. So I plan on taking really good care of my eye until then, and after then, but I will live it up for those few hours.

Okay, off to compress my eye with heat! Thankful that I can still see!

*This is quite possibly overly dramatic. But that's how I tell stories.