When the symptoms first popped up last week, I assumed I'd just given myself an eye infection. I touch my bum eye a lot, because it requires "maintenance." (It creates a lot of eye boogers and leaks a lot of water.) So when I went to the optometrist Monday, I assumed I'd be sent home with a prescription and a warning to quit touching my eye so much.
Instead, I was referred to an ocular surgeon and scheduled an MRI, because apparently an eye infection doesn't cause the eye to protrude, and the redness is an eye bruise. As the optometrist said, it's possible something is growing behind the eye.
My mom knows what's going on, only because I had to call her for some of my medical history. And she's already assured me that she'll come down "when something is scheduled."
(Hold on, Mom. We don't know anything yet. Park the horse and buggy...)
If I have to make a guess based on no years in medical school and the occasional episode of ER, I'd guess that if there's any growth behind my eye, it's part of the lymphatic malformation/lymphatic hemangioma/cystic hygroma/whatever people are calling it these days that already exists as part of my birth defect. It's not unheard of for that particular birth defect to grow, and I had parts of it removed from around my eye when I was a child.
I guess I should be thankful if it turns out to be just part of my birth defect. I mean, after all, it's not cancerous and might not even require surgery, if I could live with the idea of a more protruded eyeball. ("More protruded"? Whatever.)
On the other hand, if it *is* part of my birth defect, it's like the birth defect wins another point on the score card of life.
Of course, I could be wrong and it could be a random cyst or absolutely nothing.
P.S. I wiped out my entire HRA account to pay the $1,000 deductible required under my health insurance plan, because an MRI costs $5452! Gee whiz...so much for rolling that money over to next year's plan!
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