Laughing at the Lost Contact Lens

About 4 years ago I bought myself a year's supply of soft contact lenses. Not knowing that I could request my lens prescription, to purchase the lenses elsewhere at a cheaper price, I purchased them directly from the eye doctor. We ended up paying over $300 for this supply of contact lenses out of our pocket and DearHubby was not very pleased with this purchase because we didn't necessarily have that money to spend for contact lenses. So, to appease DearHubby, I told him that I would make these contact lenses last a long time so that instead of having just a year's supply of contacts I would have a many years' supply of contacts.

Well, I've made these contacts last about 4 years now. In actuality, I haven't worn those contacts in a year because I bought myself a pair of trendy glasses. Then, last Sunday, my glasses just didn't seem to go with the outfit I put on for church. Normally I wouldn't care about that sort of thing. However, lately, we've been struggling financially, and I have a thing about looking poor. I believe that even if one is not financially well off one can still look well dressed and dress in good taste. So, after a year of collecting dust, I finally broke out a new pair of contact lenses to look nice in my Sunday dress.

Wow, I remembered why I purchased my glasses...My eyes don't produce enough tears and so my contacts dry up easily and irritate my eyes...Yet, I continued wearing them because after all, I spent over $300 on them and I couldn't let this little issue bother me.

So, yesterday, I decided to wear my contacts to church again. The contacts expire this year and I still have a few more boxes of them left. I decided that I needed to start using them again before the expiriation date or else I would be wasting over $300. In addition, I was hoping to talk DearHubby into taking us out to lunch after church and I wanted to look nice if we did go out.

When church ended, I tried convincing DearHubby to take us out to lunch. He knows that we don't have money to spend eating out and so he said "NO". To appease me, he agreed to make us lunch, grilled cheese sandwiches. We went home and had a nice lunch...

I normally would have taken out my lenses immediately after getting home, but DearHubby and I were returning to the evening service and I didn't want to have to take out my contacts and put them back on again. One of the things DearHubby and I are changing this year is returning back to the evening service. We were very consistent with our evening service attendance before children, but haven't been back since DearDaughter1 arrived. We talked about returning to the evening service this year and yesterday would be our first Sunday back. I knew that if I didn't get a nap, I wouldn't make it through the service. I worked it out so that both girls would be down for their naps at the same time so that I could nap also. When the girls went down I just wanted to go straight to my bed. Even though I knew better than to sleep with my contacts on, I did it anyway. I had done it before and everything always worked out fine. All I needed to do when I got up was lubricate the lenses and they'd be good as new again.

As we got ready to go to the evening service I quickly jumped into the bathroom to lubricate my lenses. Since I didn't have any eyedrops handy I decided to quickly remove them and rewet them with the cleaning solution. The contact on my right eye was actually in good shape and didn't really need much lubrication. However, the contact on my left eye was so dry that I couldn't even move it. It had dried up so much that it was stuck to my eyeball! I knew it was in there because I could see the edges. I could even roll the edges up, but I just couldn't get a good hold of it to pry it out of my eye.

Well, this was just Satan trying to prevent us from getting to the evening service and I wasn't going to allow him to do so...I asked DearHubby to stop by the drug store on the way to church so that I could pick up a bottle of eye drops and then continue on to the evening service. DearHubby was hesitant about still going to the evening service and wanted me to take care of my eye, but I was very insistent that we still go. I thought that if we didn't go last night then we'd find some other excuse next Sunday not to go because that's what always happened before. I would just quickly go into the church bathroom, moisten the lenses with the drops, and then take out the lenses.

We got to church and I attempted to remove the lenses, but they didn't budge. By this time, my left eye was irritated and blood shot. DearHubby had already taken DearDaughter1 into the nursery and settled into a pew. We hadn't been there 5 minutes when I whispered to him that I think we should go to the ER.

We went back home to pick up our new insurance cards and packed up a little dinner for DearDaughter1. While at home, I tried one last time to remove the contacts and they were still not budging.

After 2 hours of waiting in the ER waiting room, I was finally seen by Doctor#1. He numbed my eyes and put a dye in them to highlight the location of the lenses. After about 30 minutes of examining my eyes he asked, "Are you sure the contacts are in there?"

"I am positive...If you could hand me a mirror, I can show you how I can fold the edges up."

"I don't see anything in there..."

A nurse came by and inquired how things were going..."You know, Doctor#2 is good at removing things like this...Why don't I get her?"

"I don't see anything in there...There is no contact lens in your eye!!!"

"If you could hand me a mirror, I can show you how I can fold the edges up."

"We don't have a hand held mirror, but I'll got with you to the bathroom."

"You see, I can fold the edges up...I just can't get a hold of enough of the lens to pry it off..."

"My dear, that's your eye!"

"You're telling me that I've been trying to remove my eye this whole time? I know that contact lens was in there when I came into the ER!"

"I don't know, but it's not there now! I don't see it anywhere!"

Needless to say, I felt really silly because I have no clue where the contact lens went. I didn't remove it and I don't remember feeling them fall out. Then, Doctor#2 made me feel even sillier, even quite foolish. Doctor#2 was quite rude and mean. I know she needed to be firm about assuring me that there was no contact lens in there, but she didn't have to make me feel more silly and foolish than I already felt about going to the ER for such a small issue. It wasn't like I wanted to waste my whole evening in the ER for nothing.

Well, the ordeal didn't just end with the ER incident, but to make that long story short, I now have a cornea abrasion which I am taking an antibiotic for and my eye is still blood shot and hurts like CRAZY!!!

So, DearHubby and I finally got to bed last night after 1am. As we were saying our last words DearHubby asked, "By the way, were those lenses the ones we paid over $300 for?"

"Yes!!!"

"Now they've cost us over $600, but I'm not counting..."

Ha ha ha...........