Vanity vs. Vision

Thursday morning, I woke up with a weepy left eye and it was producing quite a bit of yucky eye junk.  I thought, "Oh, great.  I have a clogged tear-duct."  No big deal, really.  Mostly just inconvenient and it will clear up shortly.  It was uncomfortable so I didn't go volunteer at the school, but I certainly had to go to rehearsal. While I was there, one of the other actresses saw me wipe my eye, and asked if I was okay.  She thought I was crying.  I told her I had a clogged tear-duct and then she went into her experience of having gone through the same thing.  It involved the doctor and they couldn't unclog it so she had to be put on an antibiotic.  Crap.  The idea of needing to go to the doctor was officially implanted into my brain.  Then I remembered talking with my friend who was an optician for a time, and she told me "The eyes you have are the only ones you will ever have and you don't want to mess around when it comes to their health."

The swelling was pretty bad, too.  Crap.  I hate going to the doctor.  I took a picture when I was getting ready for bed Thursday night.  I looked like someone who had been assaulted or something.

But when I woke up in the morning, and my right eye was having the same symptoms as the left eye the day before, I knew I had to call.  Crap.  Kurtis came with me, too.  Just in case I couldn't drive home or something.  Who knew what they were going to do to me.

The doctor looked at my eye with the white light.  Then he put the yellow dye in my eyes and looked at them with the blue light.  "Well, you have about four things going on and they are all converging together to make this happen.  You have a clogged gland, and that is what's causing the swelling in your left eye.  Then you have dry eyes and allergies and that has probably caused this bacterial infection."  So it wasn't a clogged tear-duct after all.  Crap.  He prescribed me some expensive antibiotics for my eyes and told me I had to go back in a week to make sure I could start wearing my contacts again.

So no contacts and no make up for a week.  My vanity is screaming, "How could you do this to us!?"  I'm not kidding.  I'm pretty vain and I don't feel very pretty right now.  The feminist in me is screaming, "Who cares?  You don't have to be wearing make up to have value in the world.!  Stop it now!"  But my vanity did not get to win this time.  I had to go to rehearsal on Saturday morning.  I also had to go grocery shopping.  Food is essential, or something.  Luckily, the kids soccer games go rained out and rescheduled.

I also did not want to go to church today.  I just wanted to stay in bed.  But I had to go to Primary because I was needed there (Oh, yes.  I was really needed there today, too.  Five adults were needed, but we only had three).  On the way to church I said that we should just leave after we take the sacrament because Kurtis wasn't feeling so good either, but he had promised to substitute Zach's Primary class, so he had to go, too.

Then, after Primary, I was looking for Kurtis and I walked into the chapel and was immediately reminded that today was Zach's first day of passing the Sacrament.  I found Zach, and said, "Are you going to pass the Sacrament today?"  "I don't know how.  I've never done it before!"  One of the other Deacons said to him, "No, it's really easy.  I'll give you the easiest route and I'll tell you what to do.  It's not hard."  And I said, "Yes.  In this church, you learn by doing it."  So my boy was thrown into the fire and not very sure what to think or do.

I led his brothers to a place where we could sit down (they were not very happy because I was changing my mind).  Finally, Kurtis poked his head into the chapel and I waved him over.  He thought we were still leaving too, and so I said to him, "It's Zach's first time passing the Sacrament.  Don't you want to watch him?"  "Oh, yeah!"  He got a really big smile on his face and gave me the thumbs up.  He was so excited to watch him that he didn't notice when the boy passing our Sacrament to us showed up.  He laughed and said to me, "I guess I am a little excited."  It was fun to watch him though.  He looked quite nervous and a little freaked out.  But he got through it.  Of the experience he shrugged and said, "It was good."  Typical.

After church, our neighbor came up to Kurtis and said, "He did such a good job passing the Sacrament.  I can't believe you guys let him turn twelve."  We laughed and I said, "Well, you know.  It's not like we really had much choice."  Then Kaleb dragged me away to give our Bishop the star he made during Sacrament Meeting.  It was cute.  I'm glad we stayed through the whole meeting.  I'm also glad that tomorrow I don't have to go anywhere.  These eye drops make my eyes water and kind of red, so I look like I've been crying.  But the swelling is almost gone in my left eye and my right eye is only slightly puffy.