Monday Morning Moose

Hey! I can see again.  Just under two weeks ago I was in the middle of a presentation for class and my eye started to hurt.  By the time I was done with the presentation my eye was teary and read.  I was able to sit through one more presentation before I was in too much pain to sit in class. I managed to drive myself to the ER (probably not the best idea to drive with the feeling of stabbing in one eye and the other eye experiencing sympathetic weeping).  At the ER they diagnosed me with a corneal abrasion, numbed the eyes so I could drive home (and a couple times before that so they could look at them), handed me some Vicodin and antibiotic ointment for my eye and sent me on my way.

Because I rarely take pain medicine and if I do, I take the littlest amount possible, I took half a Vicodin and tried to sleep.  Four hours later I was still writhing in pain, so I took two Vicodin and slept for five days.  Not just on that two Vicodin.  I'd wake up hungry, realize that looking in the fridge would hurt my eye, take some Vicodin and go back to bed.  The pain was barely subsiding and I could not even think about being out in the light without my eye hurting.  After the 5th eye doctor visist in as many days, I finally learned how to spell ophthalmologist...or my iPhone started autocorrecting it before I could focus on what I typed.  In addition to the abrasion, I had a viral infection.  A cold in the eye.  Standard run of the mill pink eye.  Which you really can't do anything for.  And then the abrasion was upgraded to an ulcer and 10 days after this whole thing started I was finally getting some relief.  I still spent the weekend holed up in my house avoiding daylight as much as possible.  And today is the first day I can look at a computer for more than five minutes without eye pain.  I should be catching up on the three papers I didn't get to do complete, but I'm blogging instead.

Moose was a crazy puppy the entire time.  Despite friends taking him for walks, hikes, to the beach, to puppy play dates, he still needed more exercise.  Poor Springer.  He harassed her nonstop to play.  She just lays on the ground and he chews on her, climbs on her, drags her around by her collar, you name it.  He's nearly as big as she is now, so it's not just cute, gentle puppy play. He hasn't done that for a while.

Moose and Lucy.  Two months ago. 

Weaning myself off of Vicodin was an experience.   I think it was three days before I didn't feel like I was drugged and walking around in a haze.  I still have a few days until I can start to train again, and probably another week before I can swim or ride my bike outside.  This mid season break was not at all planned or welcome.  We'll see where my fitness is over the next week and have some decisions to make.  Of course I might not have to make the decisions based on my class schedule.  I had to drop the class I was enrolled in there aren't a lot of options for me to replace it with and still graduate this winter. I'm not really liking the prospects, but taking a lot of classes, pushing through and putting school first was the plan this year, and after I finish the International Relations masters, I won't have to knuckle down to finish the Public Health masters for a couple more semesters.