Eye Can't See!!!

UGH!! On Tuesday night I woke up in the middle of the night because my eye was hurting SOOOO badly. When I opened my eyes, I realized that I could only see out of one eye. The other was swollen shut! I was horrified. I finally realized that I had fallen asleep in my contacts and needed to get them out. It took almost an hour to get it out of the infected eye....it hurt so bad! :o( I went to school and told my interpreters that I really needed to go to the doctor. Now keep in mind I have 2 interpreters that I can utilize, and they are allowed to take me during school time if need be. The first one I asked said that she couldn't do it because she and her boyfriend wanted to go to dinner (lame excuse) and the other one...well, she had been having some stomach problems for a few days and was going to the doctor herself. So she couldn't take me, but at least she offered to take me the next day (Thursday).

So, for 2 days my eye was blood shot and my students kept making comments about my glasses (because they had never seen me wear them before). Keiko ended up taking me to this really hip little eye clinic {I love Japan because you get to go to specialists for every problem that you have, not just a general practitioner, but a real specialist, I have like 3 medical cards: ENT, eye doctor and pulmonary doc - I had a bad case of strep throat where I landed a nice hospital stay with a IV antibiotics...UGH}. The office is literally right in front of the local train station! I have passed it so many times and never realized it. Imagine that!

Many of you who know me well, know that I am very amuzed by some of the silliest things. Well this night was no different. The parking garage was amazing. It was like a ferris wheel, but with cars on it! Here's how it works:
1.) you pull into the garage onto a track that is similar to those at a drive-thru car wash
2.) you get a tag from the attendant
3.) you leave, as you are leaving, your car is sent around and around for the next available spot for the next person
4.) once you are ready to leave, you give your ticket to the attendant and they spin the cars around until yours comes to the exit area
5.) you get in and reverse onto a BIG circle
6.) then the circle spins you around so that you can pull out of the lot without having to reverse into on-coming traffic (this was fun...I felt like I was on a ride!)
Check out this video....it's pretty short, and is someone's personal video, but it shows what it's all about!


While at the doctor's office, I got the normal vision, glaucoma and look into your eyeball exam. However, the strangest thing. We are used to the normal machine that optometrists use to check our vision, however, here in Japan I had to wear a pair of glasses that look like the ones that Where's Waldo wears. Then the technichian manually changed the lenses as I took the exam. The exam was altogether different as well. The exam consisted of him standing in various places while holding a letter card (with the letter C on it) in different positions. Needless to say, Keiko was surprised with how BLIND I am! Then, the entire exam chart consisted of the letter C in various positions. I had to show the position of the 'C' with my hand. It was interesting!

FINALLY, we were able to see the doctor. He called me into a room, which scared me a bit because there wasn't a door, just a door-length black curtain. Inside it was very dark. He used his little machine to look into my eye and take some pictures of my iris and pupils. But he also wanted to take a look under my eyelid, so WITHOUT TELLING ME, he just grabbed my already hurting eyelid and flipped it up so the underneath of my eyelid was exposed. Talk about pain...I wanted to scream. And Keiko let out a yelp! I tried to be brave and take the pain....it was over pretty quickly. Then, to my surprise I heard, "well Ta-oo-nee san, you have a condition called conjunctivitis and a scratch on your lens". He spoke ENGLISH!! I was FLOORED! The monitor was HUGE, so my eye was GINORMOUS! He complimented me on my eye color (since all he sees here in Japan is BROWN) and called in a few other folks to look at it! That's one thing I AM thankful that my daddy gave me, a decent eye color! SO, the final diagnosis was given and 2 different eye drops. The bad news, no contacts for about a week. But I am glad to report....I can see now! But I am sick and tired of these darn glasses! Thank God for contacts!