solo polo vision

Last night I'd been asleep for all of about twenty minutes when I woke up with grit behind my eyelid. This is annoying but not unusual for a contact-lens-wearer so I took my usual route of 1) sleepy rubbing; 2) annoyed blinking; 3) getting up, bathing my eye with contact lens solution; 4) increased annoyance, turn on main light to see what the problem is; 5) ARGH GOD BLIND; 6) fish contact lens out of eye whilst weeping uncontrollably in pain; 7) try to go back to sleep assuming all will be well in the morning.

However, it never got better, I never got back to sleep and by 4am I was so tired and in so much pain and so worried that I'd scratched my cornea that I donned the pirate eyepatch Donna gave me for Christmas and phoned NHS Direct for advice.

Twenty minutes later I was sitting in the eye casualty ward at the QMC crying quietly because I've not felt so sorry for myself in a long time, and also in my halluncinatory haze I was convinced I was going to lose my eye.

Needless to say, three consults later over a period of eight hours I am not blind, I just have abrasions and an infection and an earful of vitriol about the dangers of all-day all-night contact lens.

I have also got one swollen-shut eye and some serious sleep-deprivation issues.