PHEW!

So this morning I woke up for work just like any other morning. I was especially excited that today is Friday and I get off at 1pm. Plus Christian is coming to Boston—tonight we’re going to a free presentation of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc at the Hatch Shell and tomorrow we plan on heading to the Museum of Science to see the butterfly garden! Basically, everything was going my way. The morning couldn’t have been any better.

I set my alarm for 7:15am, allowing myself 15 extra minutes for a little extra oomph of rest for the upcoming weekend. However, I didn’t wake up until 7:45am—the time I am supposed to leave for work! I thought ‘Oh whatever, I’ll be a little late…I’ll just be really quick getting ready.’ So I run to the bathroom, wash my face, brush my teeth, and put a brand new pair of contacts in. Perfect. Now I just needed to throw on some clothes and run out the door. But somehow, well…things seemed a little strange. It was taking me a long time to focus and everything around me was a bit blurry. I thought my eyes were just adjusting to my contacts and continued about my morning routine. Yet things were continuously zooming in and out of blurriness. I closed my left eye. Ok, my right eye was fine—I could clearly see across the room. I closed my right eye. Yep, my left eye could see, too. Everything was in tact. Maybe my eyes were simply taking a while to adjust this morning.

But as I wandered around my room, grabbing my purse and shoes and searching for my keys, I realized that I couldn’t even see myself in the mirror. ‘Ok, stay calm Meghan, your new contacts are probably defective…or did I put them in the wrong eyes? Maybe I put my left contact in my right eye… hmph.’ I thought this was a feasible mistake for a groggy girl early in the morning, and since my eyes have two different prescriptions, I knew this simply MUST be the cause of the problem.

I went to the bathroom, took out my contacts and proceeded to put in another brand new pair. I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone—this time insuring that the possibly defective pair was removed and double checking that I had each in the right eye. But everything was still blurry! ‘How is this possible? Did my prescription change overnight? UGH! No…no…I must have received tons of defective contacts!’ At this point I was still being logical and decided to throw on my glasses for the day. But when I placed those on, everything around me was still fuzzy and I had little to no depth perception…I sat down on my bed, completely late for work and entirely disoriented

That is when I started PANICING! ‘Oh my god, oh my god, I can’t see! What is happening??!! Should I call the doctor? Go to the emergency room? Attempt to go to work and ask my supervisor for advice? But what if I don’t make it to work? What if everything continues to get hazier and hazier until I can’t see anymore?’ That’s about when the tears started to well up. I tried to think of every possible answer. Was I having a strange side effect of medication? Was this the effect of banging my head the night before last?

On Wednesday night I was in my bathroom attempting to move my laundry drying rack to another more space-saving area when I banged my head on the harshly slanted ceiling in the room. I live in a house and my room and bathroom and essentially the attic and the ceiling is very abruptly slanted and has odd contortions and sharp edges. I wasn’t wearing contacts or glasses at the time and thus knocked my skull right into the edge of the ceiling. Last night I realized my head was very tender to the touch where I banged it and very vaguely worried about a slight concussion. However, I figured if I didn’t have a headache I was probably ok.

Until this morning. Was that the cause of my blurred vision? Had I damaged or bruised something in my brain that was so rapidly affecting my vision? Or was something else wrong? Very recently a good friend of mine from high school caught a case of bacterial meningitis and was experiencing obscene headaches. She was eventually taken to the emergency room to learn of her condition and to be quarantined for the next few days. Had I caught something like that? Something that would affect the meningies in my brain?

I’ve also been having occasional fainting spells on the T when the air is especially humid and the T is especially packed. Sometimes there is no air conditioning. Usually I’ll end up feeling lightheaded and everything will go gradually dark. I originally thought the cause of that was a problem with my contacts until I almost passed out. Usually when this happens I get off the T, get some fresh air, get something into my stomach and get back on the T and head to work. I told my supervisor about it since I’ve been late to work a few times because of this occurrence. I thought maybe I was claustrophobic. My supervisor thought maybe I was having panic attacks. But now I wondered if my loss of eyesight was simply caused by anxiety during the morning hour rush…was this a sign I should have checked out sooner? An indictor of something more serious?

I thought it would be a good idea to get it checked out immediately given my harrowed state and the fact that losing a vast amount of eyesight in literally hours did not bode well. Unfortunately I was unable to contact my supervisor since she was not yet at work and I felt foolish not showing up for something that could possibly be minor. So, I decided to calm myself down, be a big girl, and trek to work bleary-eyed in the hopes that my vision would not completely fade out on my empty-stomached ride.

As I was just about to leave and pouring myself some cold water in the kitchen, I had a strange and random thought. I remembered a story about a girl who was having horrible stomach cramps for weeks and weeks, at which point she finally decided to get it checked out. After finally being referred to a gynecologist, the girl learned that she had inserted a tampon during her previous period which she had forgotten to remove. The tampon remained in her body for over a month. When she had her next period, she continued to use other tampons, putting them in and out with no problem. It turns out the original tampon was stuck up there and she had simply forgotten to remove it. Little did she know it was the cause of her serious abdominal cramping.

I suddenly had an idea—I reached for my right eye, feeling around under my glasses for anything. Nope—just an eyeball there. Now to my left eye—OH MY GOD A CONTACT CAME OUT! Everything was perfectly clear! I took my glasses off and things were blurry again, but this was normal. I placed them back on and voila! I could see! I must have left my contact(s) in overnight and then simply put my other contacts over them this morning! Of course…2 clear-sight causing contacts = BLURRINESS! I was ok! I didn’t have some disease! I wasn’t going to go blind…I wasn’t going to have to get a furry seeing eye-dog and rearrange my life and go to blind school! A MIRACLE! A MIRACLE! I went to work highly relieved and still am at this point. I can’t believe I ever took my vision for granted…even if it isn’t the greatest. One day I plan on having laser eye surgery…but until then, I will be grateful for any vision at alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!