I STABBED MYSELF IN THE EYE
I was going to do a Barbenheimer essay, but luckily for my readers I stabbed myself in the eye instead
This week it became clear I had a serious eye injury.
The night before, I’d been to see a performance of The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I’d always thought the play was about McCarthyism, but it turned out to be about blurs. The second half of the production was highly experimental, with the 1692 Salem witch trials represented almost exclusively by shards of glittering light, and an intense pain in my face.
“I knew I shouldn’t have had that second glass of wine,” I tell Jon as we leave the theatre. We are out celebrating our tenth anniversary. He says that feeling like you’ve been smacked round the head with a kaleidoscope isn’t a normal reaction to having two small glasses of wine, but I think it is:
“It was cheap wine, Jon. You know I can’t tolerate bad wine.”
24 hours later, I am in the A&E department of the eye hospital. Despite the hospital being populated entirely by the sore-eyed, they have apparently chosen to light the waiting room with a series of small nuclear blasts. So, at my request, Jon has rushed over with some of his old sunglasses. When I put them on, we realise that the shades bear an unfortunate resemblance to the sunglasses from the 2010s Deal With It reaction gif. If you haven’t seen the meme, it’s an animation of little shades dropping onto a dog’s face, usually posted as a smug comeback to someone’s disapproval. In short: I look ridiculous.
Jon asks how the wait’s been.
“I could easily get laid here,” I whisper, gesturing towards the rows of people who can only open one eye, “All the other patients have been winking at me.”
Jon ignores my joke, partly because he’s still coming to terms with dating the Deal With It dog, but mostly because, having established I am not this moment going to die, he has something important to say:
“I told you that you should have come to the hospital when you first stabbed yourself in the eye,” he mutters.
I smile. Because, as anyone in a long-term relationship will tell you, I have just given Jon the ultimate tenth anniversary gift: a completely justified I Told You So.
I had sustained the original eye injury two months ago. I want to say I did it in a cool way. Wrestling with a bear. Knife fighting with a bear. Escaping a knife fight with a bear, running into the motorway screaming for help, and then immediately being hit by a truck, driven by a bear. But there was no bear. I was trying on a shirt which had a thick carboard label, and the corner stabbed me in the eye.
Initially I attempted to ignore the pain, because I was too embarrassed to tell Jon that I’d got a serious injury from a piece of paper. What next? I accidentally cut off my hand turning the page on a particularly challenging LRB article?
But then I realised that there was a literal gouge in my eye, and I called Jon through to the bathroom for a second opinion.
“There’s a literal gouge in your eye,” said Jon, turning green. “I think you should go to the eye hospital.”
“It’s probably fine,” I replied, tears pouring down my face onto the keyboard of my laptop, where I could half-see an article saying that the eye heals very fast.
Jon doesn’t push the matter because he’s a feminist so he doesn’t like telling women what to do, and because he knows that he will get to tell me he was right when my eye inevitably falls out. One excruciating week later, the eye is healed, and everything is fine. Except it isn’t, because it turns out that whilst the cornea does heal very quickly, it also heals very badly.
Back to the eye hospital, which is excellent by the way. The NHS rocks. After seeing several kind and professional nurses for pre-checks, I am called through to the doctor. I sit down and push my horrible sunglasses onto the top of head like a wounded ski instructor.
The doctor looks at my cornea, visibly recoils, and then describes the injury in a way which I can’t justify publishing, but which does conclude with: “You must have a very high pain threshold.”
Of course, I’m delighted the doctor has just said this in front of Jon, who now has to treat the next 10 years of my agonising Cheap Wine Headaches with the gravity they deserve.
The doctor gives me antibiotics, oils and drops to put in my eye to “hopefully” help it heal, but says I may eventually have to get surgery, as it’s unlikely to fix itself long-term.
“Just for my own peace of mind, would it have made any difference if I’d come to the hospital as soon as I’d stabbed myself in the eye?” I ask.
“In this case, probably not, no.”
I turn back to Jon, smile, and incline my head forwards so the sunglasses slowly slide down from my forehead, onto my eyes.
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