18 November 05

Bleeding Eyeball (Part 1)

In the Health Unit a battleaxe of a nurse was scowling at the three Health Needs Request forms I had submitted. “So you’re the one fillin’ out all those forms, and havin’ officers call down here every day complainin’ about a pink-eye infection?” she said.
What could I say? I was the one. Not wanting to start an argument I remained silent.
“Let’s see it then,” she said.
I stretched the skin away from my eye.
She looked and said, “That’s not pink eye, your eyeball’s bleeding.” She allowed her diagnosis to settle in for a bit. Then she said, "How did your eye suffer trauma? And don’t lie to me, I’ve got a built in bullshit detector. The truth is for your own good.”
“I haven’t suffered any trauma. I’ve been doing daily handstands for eight to fifteen minutes. They make my eyes go red. That’s all I can think of.”
“Headstands,” said a second nurse who I hadn't seen sitting out of view in a separate room. “It could be the headstands.” She rose, and headed in my direction. Confident that she was coming to examine my eye, I stretched the skin again, but, disappointingly, she walked right by and stopped at a filing cabinet. She filed some papers and approached me again. When she got close I swivelled my head, exposed my eyeball, and said, “Look!” She slowed down but did not stop. She looked at my eye momentarily, and said, “If there’s no gunk, and your eyelids aren’t red, it’s not pink eye. The ocular pressure from headstands may have caused some bleeding.”
“Does it hurt?” the other nurse asked.
"It aches occasionally.”
“On a scale of one to ten, with ten being excruciating pain, what is it?”
“About a two.”
“It’s only a two. Did you hear that?”
“It’s only a two,” the other nurse echoed from the adjacent room.
“It’ll self-heal. No more headstands for a while. If the doctor wants to see you, we’ll let you know.”

Over lunch, I told Shane and Weird Al about my trip to Medical.
“By the time the doctor is notified, your eye will have fallen out. But don’t worry you’ll get a good DOC fake eye. I’ll start looking for round rocks on the rec yard for you,” Weird Al said. “Expect to be blogging with one eye from now on,” Shane said.
“You might as well warn your readers that you’ll soon be blogging in Braille.”
“I’ll know not to expect any sympathy from you two, if I lose my eye.”
“To enjoy the full experience of DOC you really should lose an eye or two.”
“And aquire a deadly disease or staph infection.”

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2004-2005 Shaun P. Attwood

Jon’s book wishlist – he is allowed used or new books as long as they are sent direct from publishers such as Amazon.