emergency

A while back, G went to the eye doc for a routine appointment and discovered that he had slightly elevated pressure in one eye. It wasn't a huge deal, but I guess it's not something that's typical in young people. And it can be a risk factor for glaucoma which kind of sucks. Since then he's had a number of eye appointments to monitor the situation. I'm ashamed to admit that I only sort of paid attention when he described the issue to me (but hey, at least I didn't start making old man jokes or anything, so I'm not completely heartless). And then at some point, we started getting all these bills for things that weren't covered by our insurance. That's a story for a different day, but you can bet that I did start paying attention then. Anyway, so it's been going on for a little while, and then a few months ago, he said that his pressure in one eye had almost doubled. The eye doc gave him some drops as a result, and he's been using them every day.

So then -- last week, his right eye started getting really red. He's been pretty stressed at work and not sleeping that well, so we figured it was related to that at first. But it got redder and redder, and finally over the weekend, I encouraged him to go get it looked at (well, "encouraged" is sort of a nice way of saying "pestered" but whatever). Cuz, dude, it was pretty bloodshot and gross looking. He went into urgent care on Sat afternoon, and came home a little later freaking out.

Apparently, the doctor in urgent care had refunded his co-pay and told him to GET TO AN ER IMMEDIATELY because it seemed like he was having a glaucoma crisis. And that it could be extremely serious, require surgery, and could potentially blind him if he didn't get it treated right away. My husband rarely freaks out so clearly the doc had made quite an impression.

So he headed up to the ER - we figured the one in town was too small and probably wouldn't have an emergency ophthalmologist on call, so he decided to head up to the one in Gilroy, about 20 minutes away. I was a bit dubious about even them having one because it's not like they're a state of the art medical facility or anything. So while he headed up there, I called them to see. Go figure, they didn't have an ophthalmologist either, and the ER doc gave me the name of a specialist in San Jose who was very good. She recommended that I contact him directly, which I did. The ER doc also told me how important the situation was and how vital it was that we see some one immediately.

The specialist called me back relatively quickly considering I had to leave a message with an answering service and it was Sat around 5pm, not exactly when I'd be answering my phone if I were an ophthalmologist. The Gilroy ER doc had told me though that he was very responsive and had always called them back whether it was during the day or at 3 am. I was actually curious as to what sorts of situation would require an eye doctor being called at 3 in the morning but figured it may not be the appropriate moment to ask. He asked me a few questions about what G's eye pressure actually was (and this is where me paying more attention would have helped a lot). I had to give him G's cell so he could get more information. G in the meantime had bypassed the Gilroy ER and was driving farther north to San Jose. It was pouring rain, he was freaking, and generally, a good time was had by all.

So THEN the specialist finally called G (after a couple of attempts, I think, because he had somehow noted the number wrong when I told him). G called me back a few minutes later to say that although he was pretty much in San Jose already, the doc told him to come back tomorrow and see him in his office. That his pressure was not that high, so there was no need for immediate concern. At least, that's what G gathered -- there was a bit of difficulty understanding the doc's strong Armenian(?) accent. The thing was though that the urgent care doc hadn't actually measured G's pressure that morning. I guess eye pressure is measured in mm HG (because while G was driving to San Jose, I didn't have much to do other than google all this on the internet). Normal pressure in the eye is 10-21 mm HG. When G had first gone to the eye doc, his pressure was 15 mm HG which I guess is high for some one of his age, but not totally abnormal. But then it had jumped in just a couple of months to 25 mm HG. That's when G's regular doc had gotten concerned and prescribed the eye drops.

The specialist told him that 25 still wasn't too concerning, at least not enough to warrant an emergency room trip. When G pointed out that the urgent hadn't actually measured him that morning and that his pressure had been jumping drastically, the doc remained unconcerned, saying that truly concerning numbers would be 50 mm HG or above. And that there was no way his pressure would have jumped that much in just a few months. Apparently he just kept repeating, "Come see me at 9 am tomorrow morning in my office." As for the redness and irritation, he attributed it to possibly the drops and stated that he could prescribe different drops "tomorrow morning in my office." G told him that he had actually stopped taking the drops once his eye started getting really red and there had been no improvement. Well, they would discuss that in "my office at 9 am tomorrow morning." G by this time was probably 5 minutes away from his office but turned around and came home.

Sun morning rolls around. I had been planning on going too, and as usual, it was a bit crazy getting out the door (with the baby in tow too). The kid chose that morning to wake up early early (like 3 am), so we were all a bit tired. She woke up again around 7:45 and decided that she didn't really feel like eating. We were trying to leave the house by 8:15 and her lack of cooperation was not helpful. G was anxious and wanted to be on time. I started ranting because goddammit, I was tired of being stuck at home all the time with a little baby and at this point, even a trip to the eye doctor seemed oh-so-exciting. Because I'm frickin' THAT bored. Oh, and I was worried about my husband, of course, and wanted to be around in case I needed to drive him home after an emergency eye surgery. Bandit chose that moment to randomly poop inside the house and basically everything and everyone went a little nuts.

We finally just bundled the kid up without feeding her, cleaned the poop, and rushed out the door. As soon as we walked into the eye doc's office, our little angel decided that THEN was the perfect time to eat, so I went back to the car to feed her. It was Sun morning, and the eye doc had come into his office specifically for us.

About 20 minutes later, G came back to the car. It was so quick that I wondered if the eye doc had wanted us to head over to the emergency room and wait for him there. Or had maybe told him that all hope was lost anyway, and that G might as well go home and enjoy his last few days of perfect vision. But no, apparently, the doc had taken one look at his eye and told him that he had, wait for it, "the pink eye." You know, that life threatening, possibly surgery-requiring, mad dash to the emergency-inducing, possibly cancer-causing pink eye.

The urgent care doc hadn't EVEN LOOKED AT HIS EYE BEFORE PUTTING HIM ON THE CRAZY BUS. G told me that the urgent care doc had him trying to look at an eye chart, but really? Some one comes in with a red eye and you want to test his vision first thing?? My guess is that G immediately launched into his eye history, and it sounds like you mention high pressure and eye in the same sentence within the medical community and they immediately thing "glaucoma crisis." Well, except for ophtalmologists who know better than to let it ruin their Sat night.

Oh, and FYI, the eye doc thought our kid had probably been the source of the pink eye, as babies get it all the time without really being too affected by it. Afterwards, I was talking to my parents and they reminded me of how my mom had also just gotten pink eye recently after we visited. And their eye doctor had also asked them if they'd been in contact with small children. My mom told me that she had been offended by the thought of her perfect grandchild giving her pink eye. HA. So the moral of the story is that if you happen to touch my kid, don't go touching your eye right after.

Anyway, we had an awesome weekend, how about you?