Intervention

By grace (and modern medicinal steroids), my eye has healed. As quick as the right retina contracted the eye cold, it just as quickly went back to normal.

Using my newfound 20/20, I read a fascinating study this morning which provides a perfectly adequate explanation for my response to the malady. The study says that the willpower contained in our prefrontal cortex is proportionate to the calculating load that our brains can manage. This means that if you are using lots of brainpower to concentrate on something big, the amount of willpower at your disposal will be severely lacking.

Stress eaters find this as no surprise, but I’ve never been one. Imagine my shock then, that by excessively worrying about my eye this week, I suddenly sought to satisfy my comfort cravings NO MATTER WHAT...and my diet growing up dictates that sugar is my comfort food. With a feeble brain on full pink eye alert, I had to hold back the urge to chug on packets of Splenda. Hour upon hour I would drink honey tea so full of sugar that it had the taste (and texture) of cotton candy.

Now, with the eye healed and stress dissipating, I get to confront a dark, visceral addiction to sweets. My usual afternoon snack of almonds tastes like cardboard. I choke on water. Irritable. Moody. Delusions that I can fly. Fantasies of building a refinery in my basement...it's getting out of control.

Of course, I’ll need massive amounts of caffeine just to make it through tomorrow...but that’ll be another entry.

Catch-20/20 with no end in sight

I count myself lucky to so rarely take ill. Other than a seasonal cough, most bugs don’t stick around in my system for too long. This may very well explain why I’m such a whiny brat when my health gives the slightest sign of weakness.

Enter pink eye. Yes--that infection of the ocular nature everyone contracted once in grade school when it was okay to stick your dirty little grubs in other people’s faces.

Except I’m not nine years old. And I certainly don’t tolerate dirty hands touching my eyeballs. So, why me?

Beyond that, why pink eye? Instead of a nice, easy cold that I could suppress with trippy drugs and yummy teas, I instead get to wear the careless disregard for my immune system on my face! And people definitely treat you with less sympathy than if you had a nagging cough—-especially when I can’t seriously look them in the face because of a droopy eyelid. Damn you, conjunctivitis!

For many years, I’ve worn contacts. I wear them so much that I never replaced my broken eyeglasses from college. Now I stare back, red faced and pink eyed, at my optometrist who tells me that not only can I NOT wear my contacts, but I CANNOT get a new prescription for eyeglasses until my eye heals.

Do optometrists have to take the Hippocratic Oath like other doctors?