Ten Weeks

Ten Weeks.

2-1/2 Months.

70 Days.

1,680 Hours.

100,800 Minutes.

6,048,000 Seconds...

From Monday, December 15th, 2014 to Monday, February 23rd, 2015 - that's how long I had a broken piece of contact lens stuck in my right eye!

It all started after Sports Night with the Cornerstone Church group. If I remember correctly we had just finished playing volleyball that evening.

After I returned home I took a shower. Afterwards I took off my disposable contact lenses that I quite often use more than once even though they're just dailies.

First I took out my left lens. No problem. Then the right... It ripped. I saw one half on the floor. I couldn't find the other half... but I could feel it. It was stuck somewhere in my eye.

I had had things like this happen to me before where one of my contacts would slip down or up (mostly up) in my eye. Normally, after some fishing around, I'd manage to dig it out. This time, no luck.

I yanked my eyelid up and dug and dug and dug around. For the life of me, I couldn't find it.

Time passed... and more time passed. I was getting desperate. I asked my roommate's roommate, Markus, if he had tweezers. He had a metal pair that I think he probably used to pick his toenails or something. Not to worry... I didn't use them. Besides not being sanitary at all, I relented thinking twice about sticking a sharp metal object into my eye.

Trying to fall asleep that night was horrible. I had this jagged piece of broken lens stuck in my eye all night long. It was just terrible.

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I have to say, during the day it wasn't so bad. When my eyes were open it didn't irritate my cornea. But anytime I closed them that's when the piece stuck in my eyelid scratched at it. It was extremely aggravating.

That night I tried again to find the broken piece and fish it out. That night, again, I failed. I struggled to fall asleep with this thing grinding around in my eye another night.

Day three - same as day two, same as day one.

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I called my eye doctor and booked an appointment for Friday. She wasn't in, but I saw one of the other doctors at her office.

She was a nice girl. At the office she looked around in my eye, but couldn't find anything. She came to the conclusion that the inside of my eyelid was probably scratched due to all the digging around I had done and that's what was bothering me. Given time it would get better.

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Time passed. A week, two weeks, three...

My eye started feeling better. A little. But, still, it never felt like it completely healed.

Even after two months I could still feel something.

And now I know why...

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...10 Weeks later, to the day, after showering after another evening at Sports Night I saw it... the @%#@$%$#% piece of broken contact lens that had made a home in my @#$@##$#!$ eye for the past two and a half months.

I have no idea where it was hiding all that time. I have no idea why my right eye didn't rot and fall out from infection. But I'm so glad I found it and that there seems to be no permanent damage.

Unbelievable!