Thursday was a little more exciting than expected.
On Tuesday I'd woken up with a mildly bloodshot eye and it hurt when I put any pressure on it. (The other eye was fine.) As a result, I went to choir practice feeling a little disreputable-looking but not unduly concerned.
Wednesday, also felt a bit self-conscious about it, saw that there was an angry splotch of red underneath the eyelid where blood vessels seemed to have exploded, and was beginning to worry if there was an infection.
Thursday, woke up with the eye still painful, feeling bleary, unable to open my discolored eye all the way, and now quite concerned that it might be a broader issue.
So instead of going to university, I cycled off to hospital, feeling a little stupid as pollen and other tree debris might fly into the eye in question and just make things worse.
The emergency department, fortunately, was entirely empty and serene. I pressed on a bell beside a mysterious closed hallway. A disembodied voice asked why I was there, and when I explained, asked me to sit in the waiting room. It vaguely reminded me of something — now I think, without any satire intended, it's the scene in the 1939 Wizard of Oz film where the Tin Woodman, Scarecrow, and Dorothy have their first audience with the titular figure.
Soon a doctor or nurse in blue robe came along and told me he'd be right with me. Once he'd started up the computer in a small dark office on the other side of the hall, he asked me what was up. He was quite understanding especially when I confessed that I was embarrassed to be going to the emergency room for something non-urgent that I'd have taken to my general practitioner if I had one. He took a brief set of notes, checked with an ear thermometer that I wasn't running a temperature (36.3°C - normal, he told me reassuringly), and accepted my health insurance card.
Despite the recent health insurance paperwork 'adventures' because of my quitting my job and not having the paperwork entirely in order, all seemed well and the coverage continued.
The young lady in the office opposite who took down my emergency contact info on her desktop computer and otherwise made sure my file had the required data was also friendl,y and wished me good luck. She sent me via an elevator to the walk-in eye clinic on the 5th floor.
After losing my way a little, I found the clinic, taken aback when entering to find that in contrast to the very quiet rest of the hospital, the waiting room was full.
As I came from the emergency department, I was allowed to go straight to a registration office instead of drawing a wait room ticket.
The doctor or nurse at the desk reminded me a bit of a strict suffragette but not in a bad way. She fixed her eyes on me and asked a few probing questions as to why I was concerned about my eye. (She didn't see any discoloration, she stated, but she'd trust me to know the colour of my own eyes.)
Then I waited in the hallway, quite pleased to see and hear the patients and medical staff being polite and friendly to each other despite the crowded conditions.
And finally I was called into room 2 (it being an eye clinic, the room numbers were pretty huge and very visible) and given an eye test. The numbers and letters were all so small I could barely (or not) read them, and if I didn't feel pretty confident about my eyesight I'd have panicked. The puffs of air that apparently tested my eye reflexes were less perturbing. I thanked the doctor or nurse and then popped out again as quickly as I could so the other patients could be handled sooner. The notes she handed me about my eye tests had '16/18' written in them, and I reassured myself that this couldn't possibly be a bad score.
After waiting maybe another hour — skim-reading Molière's Le Misanthrope, mentally re-plotting the ending of the play, and helping myself to the mineral water that had been set out for patients — getting more nervous and less able to focus as time went on, but reminding myself how fortunate I was to have such easy access to health care professionals with good-quality equipment ... I was called into room 6 for the actual evaluation.
3 medical students in white coats were sitting on, as far as I recall, rolly chairs in varying heights alongside the doctor, all turning to look at me, half sheepish and half curious, as I entered the door.
The doctor asked questions instead of examining me right away. She also seemed to wonder why I was so concerned about my eye. Had I really not had symptoms like having my eye 'glued shut,' for example? Feeling a little defensive, I mentioned the popped blood vessels, swelling around the eye, etc. I added that I'd had the idea that the vision in my left eye was a little more turbid lately, but I might be hypochondriac — and was quite relieved when she said that my eye test results had been great.
At any rate she agreed to examine me. So I propped my chin up on an apparatus again. She took a look through a magnifying lens at my right eye; no problems there. She then nudged down my lower lid on the left eye and checked it. Also fine. Then she looked at the top of my left eye, and immediately expressed lively interest and got the other students to take a look.
In about 5 seconds flat she said that she agreed with me that I had an eye inflammation. It was episcleritis, it's something that happens periodically, and it isn't a problem except in rare cases where rheumitis(?) is involved. Then she told me she'd prescribe me some eye drops, and that it was also fine to use a tear-drop solution.
So I visited a pharmacy for the eye drops on the way home from the hospital. At home I administered the first round of medication, after chatting with Uncle Pu (who had come by to do a 'victory lap' with his new certification of Austrian citizenship) and Ge.
But I was pretty exhausted from my worry about the eye, cycling to and from hospital, skipping my class, hunger from not eating breakfast, guilt about not feeling up to working on my journalism or job applications, and standing in the waiting areas for over an hour instead of prudently taking a seat in the less crowded areas. So I took a nap afterward.
And since then things have cleared up quite nicely.
I think the cause of the whole kerfuffle was that I've never cycled so regularly before in an area with lots of tree pollen and other bits and pieces falling into my eyes, and something must have gotten lodged. But it was quite unfamiliar to me to have an eye irritation on that scale. And I was probably right about the turbid vision; but it's evidently caused by my eye trying to rinse itself, clouding the cornea; it's not caused by any deterioration of the retina etc.
Anyway, the other reason why this hospital visit was remarkable was that, aside from dentistry and aside from getting two Covid shots, I haven't been to a doctor since I was a child. I've only been to the hospital because others have been sick or injured — I remembered the emergency department at this particular hospital from a visit with J. when he fractured a bone in his arm.
Today I've spent the whole day relaxing, so don't have much news. But, in terms of gossip: yesterday evening I sent off a job application to the Deutsche Bahn. There's a big part of me that wants to throw up at the thought of working in a large company again, but I felt that I can't afford to ignore all the roles that are suggested by the Agentur für Arbeit.
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