small significance.

To think that such a minute speck on my eye would cause me such trauma. I woke up yesterday morning thinking the swollenness and pain of the previous day would have subsided, but it did not. I stared in the mirror at the white blotch in an off-centered part of the black portion of my eye. I poked at it and realized it was fixed and determined not to move. I cried. This thing is growing and I'm going to be blind. I went to the hospital yesterday morning. The nice doctor told me it was an ulcer on my cornea. I cried. Heck, what do I know about ulcers? I don't.

The rest of yesterday it just seemed to get worse. Pain, swollenness, headaches, and somehow body aches. I usually just deal with pain. It honestly wasn't as bad as walking on two sprained ankles, but the foreboding possibility of having permanent loss perhaps made it more painful. I went back to a different hospital, because I had no idea how to use the four different bottles of written-in-Chinese-perscriptions. The lady-doctor told me to triple the dosage because my eye was pretty bad--quite comforting. She patched up my eye and told me to get rest and wake up in the morning and reapply the drops. Quite humorous I assure you....is the image of me with a patched up eye walking sleepily around the sketchy streets of Shanghai. I went to bed and woke up this morning. I unpatched my eye. Less pain..maybe my eye is better. My eye appeared to be glued shut. I used some hot water to remove all the gooiness.

White. All I see is white. My left eye currently...is literally blind. It can't see a thing. No color, no blurs. I stare up close at the mirror. With my right eye I see that my left eye has the shape of an eye. White and a black circle in the center, but with my left, I see nothing. I see white...and tints of white...shadows. It's quite strange. Something I've never really exeperienced.

Okay...so I fear blindness. but maybe I'm not really going blind...maybe it's just the drops getting to work, and my body getting to work to repair itself. I suppose we shall see. Perhaps I'm overdramatizing all this, because I really have no idea what is going on. Maybe this all is quite normal. Anyhow...I'm glad I get to account this experience. I can't imagine how it is for people with serious permanent physical loss. There is also that fear that people will look at you differently. The initial pity and babying, extra care from people is nice at first...but do people see you normally still? Having one eye is never as attractive as having two eyes...and I can recall thinking people with one glass eye as being sort of creepy. God forgive me for how I've thought of other people and judged them.

So now...I'm waiting.