A trip to the Eye Infirmary

Thursday 1st September 2011

All day my right eye had been itchy which is a sure sign that I'm getting a cold sore on it. However whenever I'd looked in the mirror I couldn't see any blisters.

While I was waiting for John to come out of the bathroom so we could do our weekly shopping at Morrisons, I had another quick look in the mirror to see if I could find any little tell-tale cold sore blisters.

They were hard to find as they were on the white of my eye, however they were there.....

“Huston. We have a problem”, I said to John when he came out of the bathroom, “I've got a cold sore in my eye”.

“Right”, said John slowly, as he always does when he's thinking.

We both had a think of what best to do in getting me to the eye infirmary.

“We have three options”, I said, “one, we go now and leave the shopping until tomorrow; two, we go shopping, drop off the stuff back here then go; and three we go to the hospital in the morning”.

“OK”, replied John, “so what do you want to do”.

“I'd rather not have option three given that the blisters are actually in the eye”, I explained, “how do you feel about going shopping tomorrow”.

“I don't....”, John replied, “so that leaves just option two. Happy with that”.

We pulled into the Eye Infirmary's car park at 8.50pm. A porter opened the side door for us.

“You may have a long wait”, he said, “as it's rather busy tonight”.

As the receptionist only works office hours, to get any attention you have to knock on the triage door.

A nurse popped her head out of the door, wrote my name down on a bit of paper, then disappeared back into the room.

A couple of minutes later I was called into the triage room. After taking some details I was back into the waiting area. There must have been a dozen people before me. Spending the evening in their A&E wasn't something I had planned to do tonight !!!!

The door into the doctors consultants room opened. “Marie Harper”, called out the doctor. I had only just sat down......

“So what can I do for you”, asked the young lady doctor.

“I've got some cold sores in my eye”, I replied, “I get them quite a bit”.

“Any other medical problems”, she asked.

I looked at John who had come into the consultants room with me and we both laughed.

“Where do I start”, I replied, and gave her a very brief history.

“Poor you!”, she said, after I had finished, “you have been in the wars”.

I was given the usual eye ointment and we were back home at 9.20pm.

The night was still ours....