“….BETTER THAN A JAB IN THE EYE WITH A SHARP STICK”

Maybe you’ve heard the above expression describing a not too pleasant event. Well, I can tell you that for me the first part of this sentence is – “Most anything is”.

Tuesday was a beautiful warm day so it seemed a perfect opportunity to initiate my little XT motorcycle on a Geocaching trip up Asotin Creek and into the Blue Mountains. I was having a great time – even saw my first snake of the season, a 3+ foot long Bull snake. At about 2:30 in the afternoon as I was searching for a cache in the woods about a 100 feet off the road I got hit in the eye with a branch full of thrones. I didn’t think too much about it at the time except to wish I had been wearing my glasses. It hurt, but not all that much and there were more caches to find.

I traveled about 65 miles logging a half dozen caches and it was close to supper time when I got back to town. My eye was still hurting and getting worse. By bedtime it was absolutely killing me. Then I began to worry about the lens inserts that had been placed in my eyes a couple of years ago when some cataracts were removed.

I’ve spent countless hours in the outdoors and I’ve had foreign bodies in my eyes before but I can remember only one incident with the potential severity of this one. It occurred in a Pascagoula River swamp of needle grass near Moss Point, MS. Needle grass grows in stiff dark green 1/8”-1/4” cylindrical stalks 3’ to 4’ high tapering to a needle sharp point. As I was slogging through the swamp one of these stalks poked me right in the center of the eye. I had the good fortune to have been wearing contact lenses which shielded my eye but even though it was over 50 years ago I clearly remember feeling the point hit the center of my eye and imagining the consequences had it not been for the contacts.

Back to the present. Wednesday at 8:00 AM sharp I called the Pacific Laser and Cataract Institute that had done my eye surgery and informed them of my situation. It was their surgery day and all the doctors were tied up so they suggested I just see my regular eye doctor who had referrer me to them for the surgery. Fortunately he was able to work me in before 10:00 and found the tip of a thorn in my eye along with a ¼” bow tie shaped tear where the thorn had ripped out a section of the top epidural layer of the surface of my eye. He said that eyes heal really fast but the problem was every blink irritated the wound. The solution was to put a contact lens in the eye that would cover the rip like a bandage for a couple of days while it healed. He also prescribed antibiotic eye drops.

The pain was alleviated quite a bit but it gradually increased although not as bad as the day before. The next morning it was much better and the day went pretty well.

As instructed I reported back to his office Friday morning for removal of the contact lens. As I knew, he was out of town for some continuing education training so his assistant removed the contact. She said problems were possible since the eye no longer was protected by the lens. Before he left town my doctor had informed one of the Pacific Laser and Cataract Institute doctors of my plight and I was to call there if problems continued. It seems to be fine now with just a little irritation later in the day and my vision is improving. As of now (Saturday morning) things seem to be going well. It’s unbelievable how something so painful can heal so quickly. I guess I’m a lucky boy. M/W