Eyeball update, part 23745961

So, the good news is that my eyeballs are FINALLY starting to look better. The bad news is that it’s taken a lot of medication and a lot of waiting. I saw an optometrist here pretty much as soon as I got my health insurance set up through work, which was around the end of August. She confirmed what my general physician at school had said, that my symptoms sounded a lot like ocular rosacea, not allergies; however, for reasons that I don't fully understand, she’s been reluctant to actually diagnose me with it. So the official diagnosis right now is blepharitis, which is an inflammation of the eyelids. It’s something that can be caused by rosacea though, so I have an appointment with a dermatologist on Wednesday to see if he can tell me if that’s been contributing to my eye problems and if so, how to keep it under control.

Since my August appointment with my eye doctor, I’ve been on an oral antibiotic and was briefly taking a combination antibiotic/steroid eyedrop. The antibiotics are used because they’re anti-inflammatories, not because it’s some sort of bacterial infection. Anyway, it takes a couple months for the antibiotic to work its way into your system, so it’s been only recently that I’ve seen an improvement in how my eyes look. The itching has been significantly reduced though, so that’s also helped with the redness. My optometrist was optimistic that I could eventually wear contacts again, and although my eyes aren’t clear enough for me to feel comfortable putting in contacts yet, I’m really hoping that time is coming.

Although I’ve been really glad over the past few weeks to see actual, lasting improvement in my eyes, it’s been hard to not to dwell on all the what-ifs from the past. Was there something I used before that triggered the rosacea, since it doesn’t run in my family? How different would the past two years have been if the first ophthalmologist I saw had known what this was? Would it have taken less time to clear up?

In some ways I’ve gotten more used to wearing glasses than I ever thought I could. But that doesn’t stop me from gazing jealously at my little sister’s perfectly pale eyelids over lunch last weekend, or getting annoyed with co-workers who have perfectly healthy eyes and choose to wear glasses instead of contacts, and admit that it’s just due to laziness. That is something I will never understand—why would you ever choose to just wear glasses when you could be using contacts? I understand not wanting to stick something in your eye, believe me. When I first got contacts in high school, it took me two unsuccessful hours at the doctor’s office, crying, going home, and another hour at the office the next day before I could finally keep my eye open long enough to get the contact in. It then took me another half hour to be able to get them out. Trust me, if I can do it, anyone can do it.

And okay, I understand that it’s nice to be able to just take your glasses off whenever you want to take a nap. But those things will never outweigh the benefits of how much better your vision is with contacts because you actually have peripheral vision and how much more convenient it is to go through life without a hunk of metal and glass permanently affixed to your face.

Hmm... I guess I had a rant I needed to get out.

Anyway, over the past several days, I’ve tried to readjust my outlook from what-if, why-me to something more positive. I’ve finally found a doctor who knows what I have and has a plan to treat it. My eyes ARE getting better and they rarely hurt anymore. Although the antibiotic has some annoying side effects, at least there is medication. The other things that I need to do on a regular basis to get/keep my eyes healthy—get plenty of sleep, exercise, drink lots of water, stay out of the sun—are things that I should be doing anyway, so now I have additional motivation. The bottom line, most important thing I have to remind myself to be thankful for is that this isn’t something that affects my vision. It could be worse.

The other thing this has helped me get into perspective is that you never know what problems other people are dealing with, medical or otherwise. There are a couple of people at work that I’ve talked to about my eye problems, and my medical issue is probably more visible than many, but in general, I keep it to myself. How many other people at work are dealing with some sort of medical problem of their own or their child’s, or some other personal/family issue that they wouldn’t feel comfortable discussing? The fact that someone looks fine doesn’t always mean a lot.

DC weekend with Laura

On Friday before leaving work for happy hour, a coworker asked me what I had planned for the weekend. “My little sister’s visiting!” I said. Him: “Oh. How little are we talking about? Like, 12?” Hmm... I guess I should start referring to my 22-year-old sister as “younger,” not “little.”

Anyway, Laura arrived later that night and we spent the rest of the evening just hanging out and catching up. On Saturday we headed downtown to do the whirlwind tour of Washington. We went to the Capitol first and wanted to go on a tour, but all of the people in line looked like they had special nametags, so we assumed that we hadn’t planned ahead enough to get tickets or something. Later on we decided to go back to ask one of the guards what the story was, and he told us that anyone can get tickets, but they just ran out 10 minutes ago. Whoops...



After our non-tour of the Capitol, we walked toward the mall to get back on the metro, but we took a slight detour because I had to pee. The nearest bathroom was in the United States Botanic Garden. After my beeline to the restroom, we wandered through the different geographic “locations” and admired all of the plants we couldn’t pronounce and didn’t recognize. The best part was that the indoor garden has a skywalk, so you can admire the rainforest from above. Pretty cool! Here’s Laura on the skywalk:


This is one of the things I love about DC—you’re just looking for a bathroom and then you stumble upon some amazing exhibit.

After we made it out of the garden, we took the metro north to Dupont Circle. The first order of business was lunch, then we followed the Lonely Planet’s recommended walking tour of Embassy Row. I tested Laura on her international flag skills, and she definitely scored higher than I did. Some of the embassies were very impressive, but others looked like just a random row house with a strange flag and unintelligible plaque outside. I wonder how you get onto the United States government’s A list when it comes to embassy housing. A Lonely Planet misprint had us wandering around Dupont Circle for a little longer than we planned trying to find the Spanish Steps, but after finally finding them (and being mostly underwhelmed), we got back on the metro to see the National Cathedral. Another Lonely Planet misprint, however, left us wandering around some random part of northwest Washington for about half an hour before we gave up on seeing the Cathedral and headed back to the Capitol area.

The sun was setting when we arrived at the Supreme Court, making for some squinty shots of us but some beautiful views of the building.



We couldn’t skip the third branch of the government once we had already visited the first two, so we headed over to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We got to the back of the White House before the sun set completely, so we were able to get a couple of decent pictures.


By the time we got around to the front though, it was a different story... This was the best I could come up with:


We went home early because Laura wasn’t feeling well, so we weren’t able to eat at Jaleo. It might have been for the best though, because we were both pretty tired. It’s amazing how just a few months out of college can make your walking muscles shrivel.

Laura and I spent Sunday shopping instead of trying to run downtown again for a couple hours before her flight left. I had been wanting to get an indoor plant for a little while, so we headed to Lowe’s and each picked up a Bonsai tree. It’s pretty cute, but I’ve discovered, after a little online research, that a Bonsai tree is pretty much the most high maintenance houseplant you can get. That combined with my “gardening skills” probably gives the poor plant about a 15% chance at life beyond one month.