Pirates

Do pirates say, "Aye, matey" or do they say, "Eye, matey"?

Hubby almost became one last week. The kind that would say, "Eye, matey."

Tuesday morning, the third (he was on vacation all last week), he was mowing the lawn. Bless him. I just can't do it anymore. In any case, the blades were obviously in need of sharpening (thanks to my mowing boulders), and he took them to the garage to grind them nicely. He wore sunglasses, but not safety goggles. He thought he got a bit in his eye, but brushed it out and was fine.

That evening his eye was very red and irritated. Some people we know have had pink eye, and I thought somehow he'd gotten it. By morning it was no better, so we treated it with some pink eye medicine left over from a couple years ago. He decided to go to the Independence Day festivities, such as they were, though he didn't look very good. The drops helped it feel better, he said, but they weren't having the quick effect I remembered them having on the kids. In our family, we always wait until national holidays to need medical care.

Thursday morning I called Hubby's naturopath who recommended a local doc here in our town. We got in within a few hours, and I must say the guy cracked me up. He delivered all five of Hubby's aunt's kids, years ago. He laid Hubby out on a table and used dye and pain killer and giant q-tips and phrases like, "Oh crap," and "What'd ya do? Pluck your eyebrows?" He meant eyelashes; he had nothing to grip to turn Hubby's eyelid inside out. As it was, he discovered a tiny speck under hubby's eyelid, and an abrasion on the eye it had caused. He also found a piece still lodged in the front of the eye, just below center. Not good. That's when the "Oh crap"s really started. They called some eye doctor on call in Town, and sent us there straightaway. I'm very grateful my mom was here with the kids and I was able to go with him. When the doc said, "Yeah, you really did it. Crap. You're gonna have to have an opthamologist reverse-drill that thing out before it digs itself all the way into your eyeball" Hubby started to get a bit nervous.

The opthamologist on call used a needle-like knife (I think) to "reverse drill" (looked like "dig") the stuff out. Hubby wasn't convinced it was from the grinding he did until the doc talked about all the rust in there. No wonder it hurt. Is that how pirates lost their eyes? Specks of steel rusting in their cornea? Eye, matey.

He had to use some eyedrops every 2 hours while awake for 2 days. The rust might've returned, but I think we're in the clear by now. It might still cause a permanent change in his vision. He says it's blurry, and he feels the "hole" still, but no more pain (and wouldn't you know it, he'd busted his glasses and we ordered and paid for another identical pair just before all this).

By the time our outing was over, it cost us $265... and he didn't even get an eye patch.