Moorfield Eye Hospital

People at the office have been asking me all week whether I have pinkeye. My right eye has been all red and evil-looking since Monday morning, and this has raised speculation that someone may have farted in my pillow. Apparently, that's what grown ass lawyers believe in terms of how you contract pinkeye. I suppose it could be possible...

Unfortunately for me, it's not pinkeye (or farteye, as I've taken to calling it). Instead, I have contact lens induced corneal infiltrates. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

I have a love-hate relationship with my eyes, and the love in me convinced me to go to a corneal specialist today to see what's going on in regards to the whole seeing thing. A colleague of J's recommended Moorfield Eye Hospital in the city, so I called on Monday to get an appointment asap. A harassed sounding woman transferred me to another line once I mentioned that I was privately insured, and a much nicer sounding lady came on the line and scheduled an appointment for me for Wednesday and sent me a very helpful map. It turns out that if I was going through NHS (public), I would have had to go to a GP first and get a referral to an opthalmologist, but since I have private insurance, I was able to see a corneal specialist straightaway and bypass the GP and opthalmologist altogether. Public healthcare - 0, private insurance - 1.

Once I arrived at Old Street station, I followed the green line to the hospital.  Isn't that great? There's an actual green line leading from the tube station to the eye hospital! Very yellow brick road of them. Anyway, I got poked and prodded by an optometrist and the corneal specialist, and they assured me I wasn't going to need a glass eye or anything, but that I'd have to use eyedrops hourly and lay off the contact lens for at least a month. Crap.

A funny note: my cornea guy couldn't figure out where I was from. I told him I was from the US, and he asked which state, to which I replied California, of course. Then he said that I don't sound American. Whaaa??? What does an American sound like anyway? Because this is it, folks.

In any case, he sent me on my merry way with a prescription for drops and ointments and the like, and I went to the main hospital facility to visit the pharmacy there. Get this, they even have a separate pharmacy and cashier for the private patients! What's up with all the segregation, people?! In any case, I didn't have to wait long, and everyone was very nice and efficient.

I'm fine eye-wise, and I have an appointment to return in two weeks to make sure that my cornea is healing nicely and until then, I will be attempting to rock my Coke bottle eyeglasses. I suppose things could be worse - I could have an eye patch. But then I'd get a parrot and a wooden leg and look totally badass. Damn.

Vasomotor Rhinitis

In a recent issue of Men's Health:

"Doctors usually blame congestion, watery eyes, and serious bouts of sneezing on allergies, but unless you recently moved or changed jobs, it's rare to develop allergies in your 20s and 30s. Instead, your symptoms may be the result of vasomotor rhinitis, a condition triggered by nonallergen irritants, such as perfume, smog, and cigarette smoke, that inflame your nasal mucous membranes, says Patricia Wheeler, M.D., an associate professor of family medicine at the University of Louisville. The allergy medicines you're prescribed won't provide relief."

Since I've arrived in London, I've had puffy, watery eyes and a runny nose that's perpetually raw from all the nose-wiping that ensues whenever I leave the flat. It's especially bad whenever I enter the City, and I've started carrying tissues with me everywhere so I don't look like that crusty kid from the third grade that no one wanted to sit next to. And I'm just going to say it: don't look in your tissue after blowing your nose after riding the Tube - you'll end up walking everywhere afterward for fear of getting miner's lung.

I've never had allergies, and this article totally explains the recent congestion troubles. Yes, I use magazines to diagnose my health issues, and I believe everything they write. Don't judge. The inexplicable part - I'm from LA! The land of orange and purple sunsets! Where all free radicals and particulate matter unite to terrorize the local citizenry!

If we were in Asia, I'd totally walk around wearing one of those surgical masks. Normal there, not so normal here. Damn.