Apparently I’d been premature in the positioning of my head, but I was over today. My head hurt, my ear hurt, my fucking brain hurt, and I ached all over.
Sitting back with a sigh, I looked up so she could apply the dye.
Which turned out to be acid.
Fuck my life.
“I keep telling you, Alex, it was the standard dye strip used for every patient with a bit of saline solution on it. It’s likely the pain was caused by the saline solution going into the abrasion on your cornea.”
“Well, it felt like acid.”
“You know when you put hydrogen peroxide on a cut, and it stings?” When I nodded, she smiled at me. “That’s like saline solution on a cut in your eye.”
“Do you think it’s just normal pink eye, Doctor Pam?”
“No, Evie. Alex has something called Keratitis. Basically, during the situation at the station, the debris that went in his eye scratched the cornea, and now it’s infected. It’s not contagious like pink eye, so don’t worry.” The last bit was aimed at me.
“How do we fix it?” Evie asked, leaning in close to look in my eye like she could see it without the special gadgets the doctor had.
“I’m going to give you a prescription for some antibacterial eye drops that’ll hopefully clear it up in a few days. But if they don’t, come back, and we’ll give you oral antibiotics.”
She walked over to the cabinets on the other side of the room and pulled something out.
“Because you already have an infection, you need to wear this for a week to prevent the cut from getting reinfected. We’ll book you a follow up appointment so I can see how it’s healing, but if you don’t notice any difference or it starts to get worse, give me a call, and I’ll do the prescription for the antibiotics.”
Looking down at the package she handed me, I saw two words that made this day even shittier.
Eye patch.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Evie
I knew what was going to happen the second we walked through the door.
Looking up from the game they were playing, Dave and Cody stared open mouthed at Alex as he walked in behind me.
“Is that a joke?” Tabby asked as she walked into the room with Sheena on her hip.
“No. Alex has a cut on his cornea from some debris that went into his eye during the Terry Bailey thing, and now it’s infected. He’s got drops to put in his eye and needs to wear the patch to stop it getting reinfected.”
“Is it pink eye?” Cody asked as he leaned over the back of his chair. “That means you farted on your pillow.”
“I’m gonna go and lie down,” Alex mumbled behind me.
Biting my lip to stop the laughter, I waited until he’d disappeared.
“He’s a bit sensitive about it, you guys. A kid accused him of farting on his pillow in the waiting room, and Alex gave him a lecture on fecal bacteria and how you can get pink eye if you don’t wash your hands after you poop.”
Cody straightened up.
“Wait, fecal’s poop, right?” When I nodded, he looked down at his hands. “And it’s got bacteria in it that causes pink eye if you don’t wash your hands?”
“With soap,” Dave added just as I said, “Correct.”
Dropping the controller, he ran toward the bathroom. “I’ll be right back.”
Both me and Tabby were staring at the hallway with our noses wrinkled, but then we heard a clatter and turned round to see Dave jumping to his feet, holding his hands in the air.
“Gross. He touches that controller when I’m not here.”
As he sprinted to the kitchen to wash his hands too and hopefully bring back sanitizing wipes, Tabby turned to Sheena, who was watching where her daddy had gone, looking unimpressed.
“And this is why boys are gross. Yuck, dirty boys.”
Coming back in with a pack of wipes, Dave smiled and winked at his daughter, totally oblivious to the lesson his wife had just shared with her.
Well, that was until Sheena pointed at him and yelled, “Gross. Dirty boy!”
Three months later…
Christmas was coming up fast, but I wasn’t panicking. I’d already bought all of mine on Black Friday.
Work was busy, so we could only shoot our videos as and when we had time to do it. To be honest, we’d dialed back a lot of them because of the increase in appointments, but we still made a point to post one challenge and three tutorials or reviews a month.
And today was challenge day.
“I really don’t think Duct Tape does the same job as waxing,” Jacinda said, echoing what I’d said at the very beginning.
“Well, at least we’ll have something pretty covering our leg and armpit hair.” Sayla was looking very happy about that because she’d picked the pink camouflage version of the tape, whereas I had unicorns and Jacinda had ducks on hers.