I have 3 siblings. Of the four of us, all but one have eye refractive errors. The rest have required glasses since maybe 4th grade to correct them. My little sister and myself are particularly screwed because not only do we have an obvious dependency on glasses, but also our retinas are starting to get messed up too.
You see, I have what is called high degree axial myopia, meaning my eyes are too big for my corneas and lenses to focus appropriately on far objects and thus I am legally blind without my contacts or glasses. Pero bueno todo sea por mis ojotes tapatios!
These type of eyes have a greater susceptibility to degenerative retinal changes, including retinal detachment. If we were fatalist people, which I clearly am, we could interpret this to mean that I could go blind all of a sudden. Anytime. Permanently. If only I was ignorant about this tiny tiny fact, it would all be easier.
I am not a candidate for refractive surgery, since I have a borderline thin cornea and my degree of myopia would require shaving off most of it, leaving me with a keratoconus. Which is clearly not desirable.
I usually always wear contact lenses, actually most people have never seen me with my glasses. I do this not only because I hate how I look with glasses, but also because when people see my thick glasses they always go: "No manches que gruesos! Estas super ciega, porque no te operas?" And everytime I have to take a deep breath, and hold myself from bursting: "A ver ignorante, si tus dos malditas neuronas hicieran sinapsis y te dieras cuenta que la respuesta a tu pregunta esta implicita en tu comentario, nos ahorrariamos este momento embarazoso para ambos. Lets break it down for you, shall we? Que gruesos! = my refractory error must be quite considerable. Estas super ciega = further states the latter. Porque no te operas? = Exactly because of what you've just said, ass! Estoy super ciega! Claramente no tienes ni el mas remoto entendimiento sobre las bases de la cirugia que estas proponiendo. SO, SHHHTT IT!" You can understand why I rather just stick to the contacts. I do not posses all that self control or patience.
So anyways, yesterday my middle sister, the formerly 20/20 vision sister, was diagnosed with a MILD refractive error. Let me say that again, M-I-L-D. It would be barely noticeable except for the fact that she is a designer and has to be in front of a computer for the better part of the day messing around with lines and graphs and whatever it is that she does. She was prescribed glasses, more specifically -0.50D glasses. I tried to be supportive. You know, being the big sister and a doctor and shit I was all like: "its great, you are going to see so much better, your eyes won't get as tired, bla bla".
But when she told me how "depressed" she was and how "sad" this whole thing made her I was like, Honey, you won't get no empathy from me! Go tell your shitty-ass whining to someone with a perfect vision, not to a legally blind person!! Not to the person who has cried on her last four Ophtha checkups! Come on! You surely don't expect ME to comfort YOU! Just appreciate I'm not laughing at your damn -0.50D prescription.
So whats with this tangent?
I have an aphthous ulcer.
I have an aphthous ulcer on my lower lip frenulum. It hurts like FUCKING HELL. I tried eating my lunch today and literally a tear came down my cheek. For the whole day I couldn't get over my ulcer. It is such a pain. God! But I haven't told anyone.
Wanna guess what my patients diagnosis is?
MUCOSITIS.
She is on PCA morphine for pain control and on TPN because she can't take PO. Because of the PAIN.
Fuck.
