A couple of days ago my right eye became very red and irritated and EXTREMELY senstive to light, especially the bright sunight. The contacts I was wearing were getting old, and there has been a lot of volcanic ash in the air. I thought maybe changing to a new pair of contacts would clear it up if it was just volcanic dust settled onto the lens. Today is day two with the new contacts, and it definitely was not getting any better. I gratefully borrowed sunglasses from a colleague to ward off some of the pain.
On the advice of my host mom and my Spanish teacher, I went to Antigua after lunch to find a specific optical clinic. I got there around 1:30 only to discover that they close for lunch from noon until 3 pm. (A slightly longer lunch break that I ever had as a teacher!) So, I stopped at a store and then hung out at good old McDonalds until 3. When I returned to the office, my communication fears were confirmed. Just the initial conversation with the person at the desk caused me to pull out my translator and apologize for my lack of Spanish. He surpised me by having me follow him into a room immediately for an exam. (What I didn't know at the time was that after I went in the room, the receptionist told my colleagues that he was not a doctor but rather an assistant of some sort.)
Throughout his thorough examination, we continued to struggle to overcome our communication barrier, but he was very patient with me. I did, however, begin to lose confidence when he started walking back and forth between my eye and his poster of eye problems to compare what he was seeing! Eventually, he concluded that my cornea was inflamed and prescribed antibiotic eye drops. So, I have 10 days of drops with instructions to return if that does not resolve it.
Despite the challenges, I am very grateful at how smoothly things went and am praying that this will resolve the problem.
No comments:
Post a Comment