Friday, February 17, 2012

My (non) emergency visit to the hospital

During last block yesterday my left eye got all red, watery, and irrated so I took my contacts out and wore my glasses.  The kids have never seen me in them so it caused it quite a stir :) 

My eye was fine all evening when I went shopping with a friend, but about 9 pm it started hurting really badly.  I couldn't open it without searing pain.  I thought maybe it was scratched or some crazy pice of Mumbai polution had gotten in there.  I thought if I just went to sleep the dirt would work itself out or the scratch would repair itself if my eye was closed and resting for 7 or so hours. 

I woke up around 2:30 to use the bathroom and could not open my eye.  It hurt so bad I couldn't open it long enough to see if anything was in there etc.  I wasn't in any real danger but I need my eye to do a lot of things this weekend!!  There is a hospital about a 5 minute walk from my flat and I figured I'd have a good chance of getting seen this late at night.  I put some clothes on and walked down to the hospital with one eye closed.  Luckily it is pretty easy to get around that time of night - no people to dodge, no noisy traffic, etc.  I got to the hospital and it was silent - not a soul moving.  I went to the ER which was empty - NOT a sight you would see in the US!!  I told the nurses (or whoever they were) about my eye.  They babbled to each other in Hindi and pushed a button to call a doctor.  The doctor came and asked me the same questions about my eye.  He said " you need to go to blahblahblah - they have an eyespecialist there.  We are not an eye specialist hospital"  HE WOULDN'T EVEN TOOK AT IT!!!  I didn't need a specialist!!  He could have looked in there, found dirt and flushed it out.  done.  Or he could have found a scratch and said "just rest with your eyes closed for the next 24 hours"  great.  He wouldn't even look at it.  I didn't even know what hospital he was talking about.  He tried to explain where the hospital was.  It was about a 20minute walk at this time of night from where I was.  There were no rickshaws available.  I thought wondering around somewhere I don't know at 3 am with one eye closed was probably not the best idea. 

So I went home and went back to bed and prayed that it would be all better when I woke up.  Jesus answers prayers!!!  It felt much better a when I woke up.

Let's hope I never really have a medical emergency at my flat.  Maybe I'll be bleeding to death and they don't have a bleeding specialist!!!  ha!! 

My eye is still a irritated, but it isn't searing pain anymore!  :)  Now I can get some stuff done!

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