Friday, December 2, 2016

Pox on you! Well it happened! Is it your fault Super Hen?

I suspect that little opening will have the desired effect---lots of hits.
'Hardly a Christmassy statement,' you say.
I reply, 'well it ain't Xmas yet, even though the shops are playing those bloody awful commercialized versions of what goes for carols these day!'
Now give me some leeway here and I shall reply and make a little more sense of my opening gambit.

The last few months have been a bit 'off' for me. I have had a nagging eye issue that just would not go away. There was slight redness and a feeling of discomfort. I put it down to a permanent condition I have re the lower lids, that I can't spell so I won't bother you with the details, other than to say that it is managed by using weak soapy water solution in the morning and night to keep it at bay. There is NO medication for it.

So, to make a short story longer, let's say that I kept ignoring with what I was being presented. Then---it all  became too much, so I took a trip to my new doctor and told him what I suspected it was---a recurrence of a condition that is caused by  my youth---MY way past youth back on the farm? Yes---I had the POX---Chicken Pox, along with most kids at that time, and probably something that is still happening today.

Now---feel free to correct me with quasi-truths and bullshit, chucking in a few jelly beans for those who remember. If one had CP as a kid, the 'whatevers' then hide in the nerve thingies and remain there, coming out in the form of 'cold sores and possibly Shingles at a later time in one's life. OK---the medicos amongst you can refine my observation. Do so gently, my friends or  wall blast you with profanities,  straight from Super Hen's butt, given the way I still feel.

About 4 times in the past 40 plus years I have been visited by  the condition that afflicts me today, and it ain't pretty. The eye looks and feels terrible, vision can be affected (to the point that I was once admitted to the eye ward in Greenlane.) It must have been difficult for doctors in the 'way back' to define and make a good diagnosis, because often I was treated with antibiotics which are as about as usless as ttits on a bull, when it comes to viral infections. Eventually they got it right and I became quite good at telling the difference in the feeling---between  Conjunctivitis and the 'virus,'---Herpes Sinplex, I think it is called (OK---correct me again---I am happy with that)

I am of an age, whereby one does not easily 'tell' a doctor what is wrong, but I bloody well did this time, both my lovely new one (who listened and got me into the Eye Clinic, pronto at Hamilton Hospital (that bloody great  behemoth that feels like a big town!  Next time I am getting a fast wheel chair to get around)) and the eye doctor at the hospital.

I suggested to him what I felt was wrong and that he would be giving me whatever passes for Zovirax, these days and he quite quickly came to the same conclusion. He pissed me off a bit. It was at the end of a four hour wait and I was the last patient. (Jeeze, it pisses me off when heaps of people arrived well after me but saw him first!) He kept shoving my head onto the chin thing that holds your face up or whatever, not making  the adjustments for the fact that I was a good deal shorter than the last patient. Oh well---WTF, I thought---at least I was being seen to and I had been HEARD.

I left the hospital with Rio and we collected the 'ointment' from an 'after hours' pharmacy in Hamilton (no such establishment in Thames) and we were soon on our way, past the burnt our car, we saw aflame on the way to Hamilton and back to our lovely Thames. I couldn't wait to stick my eyeful of ointment in and get some sleep. It was not a nice sleep---interrupted by the virus, launching a  night attack. I just knew that if I had left it until Monday---there would have been a different ending to this little ditty. The moral of this---DO NOT WAIT when it comes to your eyes. ASK the questions about 'viral versus bacterial,' infections. They can look similar but have very different results.

It's going to be a quiet weekend  me thinks as I get on top of this. Thanks for all the lovely messages.
Catch ya later.