i’m not compulsive about washing my hands because 1) i’m lazy and 2) i’m a big believer in forcing our bodies and immune systems to adapt to germ warfare. my philosophy has always been that the more you cleanse, the more susceptible you render yourself. your physiological defense shields weaken, and you give bacteria opportunities to evolve, outsmarting soaps and waterless gels. plus, germs don’t scare me.

however, recently i’ve learned a few things the slightly hard and really dumb way.

1) don’t rub your eyes excessively (even though it feels like heaven to soothe that fiery itch). furthermore, don’t rub your eyes so vigorously and with such abandon that the act produces strange, grotesque wet, gooshy sounds (derek and anthony, you know what i’m talking about)

2) if i am going to indulge in grinding my eyeball with my fingers, then maybe i should wash them beforehand

3) manage my crappy allergies with more diligence!

since the beginning of february my eyes were especially irritated, itchy, and red. all the eyedrops and rubbing in the world could not placate me. it often felt like somebody had poured sand, or course ground shells, into my eyeballs, particularly the left one. and let’s not talk about the eye snot in the mornings. i chalked all this up to severe allergies, maybe even hayfever.

the weekend before last, i noticed that the skin around my left eye had grown increasingly repulsive in appearance. crusty, dry, fragile, sensitive, like desiccated paper. i figured maybe this was due to the harsh winter weather. so thanks to the advice of a smart fellow, i bought some vitamin E cream to nourish that area back to health. whenever i applied the stuff, it would hurt a bit, but whatever.

then in the mornings i noticed i’d have a difficult time opening my left eye because it was crusted shut. kinda gross but i’ll admit it’s fun picking off all that bodily fluid/mucous membrane sediment.

during our 24 hour escapade to LA, however, i realized that it wasn’t improving. it started stinging, and felt…”gooey.” the outer edge of my eye couldn’t open all the way, as if pus was trying to seal the top and bottom eyelids together. though the outer corner of my eye was flaky and crusty, the skin closer to my eyeball was raw, reddish maroon, wet, and with a disarming sheen. ugly!

in other words, all the signs of an infection. sigh.

by the time i hit the sack on wednesday night after the stephen chow screening, i was miserable and i’ll admit, a tad nervous. and by thursday morning i was in pain. i know, it sounds childish and weak, but it’s amazing how much discomfort a tiny afflicted region of your body can instill. really. it burned and it was kinda weird operating with a gimpy eye that refused to open wide. upon closer inspection i realized the infected area was actually a cut, a split in the skin. this would explain the stinging every time my eye would widen. it was the laceration’s way of screaming “STOP! i can’t heal this way!!!”

after consulting with pals and a doctor friend who recommended i seek medical attention (something i stubbornly refuse to do) because it might be staph, and recalling terrible misfortunes that befell people as a result of insidious strains of staph, i gave in and saw a doctor. luckily, i was booked the same day and was prescribed antibacterial ointment (the stuff of miracles) and more allergy drugs.

anyway, the whole “episode” was annoying and gross. what i find to be even more disturbing at the end of it all is the fact that i can manage to devote so many words to such a trivial, small thing. yet another example of why blogs can be bad. the photos below don’t really do justice to the nastiness.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 8:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.