Few of you may not know but for the second half of last week, I once again injured my cornea and was once again without my eyesight for a few days.
Fortunately for me I had already drafted out my previous entry on Mudah and all I had to do was ask someone to publish it for me so many of you probably didn’t know I was gone.
Well…. so it happened .. AGAIN.
This is the 3rd time I scratched my cornea in 8 months and each time I do it, I go through a lot of pain and lose my eyesight for a few days which is really great for catching up on loss sleep but really frustrating if you have plenty of work to do.
Clearly.. the helmet I wear to sleep really ain’t helping.
So I went back to my eye specialist.
The minute I took my first step into his room he said
“AHH….. Mr Tiah… nice to see you again.”
I replied
“Yes Doc… this is becoming a habit. Do you happen to have one of those Coffee Bean kind of loyalty cards where I come for 12 treatments and get the 13th one for FREE?”
The Doc laughed it away and got down to looking at my injury.
After 5 minutes of examining my eye, he said
“I think you suffer from this thing called a Recurring Corneal Erosion”.
Naturally my reply was
“Doc… English… please!”
and he went on to explain that my injury was really nothing to do with me scratching my eyes but more like a disorder where the outer layer of my cornea fails to attach properly to the underlying layer hence causing some kind of friction.
Anyway I wikipedia’ed “Recurrent Corneal Erosion” later on and found out.
Recurrent corneal erosion is a disorder of the eyes characterized by the failure of the cornea‘s outermost layer of epithelial cells to attach to the underlying basement membrane (Bowman’s layer). The condition is frequently painful because the loss of these cells results in the exposure of sensitive corneal nerves.
Painful eh??? YOU DON’T SAY!!!
Anyway as always I’m always a guy about solutions. Not about what happened before but what we can do to stop it from happening again so I asked the Doc
“Doc… so how ah? How to make sure I dun kena like this again?”
And you know what the Doc said?
He replied
“Oh you can’t.. it’s going to happen like that pretty often for the rest of your life.”
I let out a courtesy laugh after that… you know.. the Doctor just told a joke and when the doctor tells a joke.. YOU LAUGH. Simple as that right?
You know there was once a case where someone went for a Kidney transplant and the Doctor operating on him mistakenly removed the wrong kidney?
He removed the kidney that was working instead of the kidney that wasn’t.
Do you know why? It’s not because the Doctor is an idiot. Doctors are all smart.
It’s because the patient didn’t laugh at the Doctor’s jokes when he was telling it.
So when in surgery the Doctor decided to take matters in his own hands and when the shit hits the fan, all he has to say is
“Whooops… wrong kidney… sorry ah! They both look the same to me.”
Anyway back to my Doctor. My Doc replied
“Hey I’m not joking you know. I’m serious”.
What was I supposed to say to that?
If this happens say even 3-4 times a year, that means I’ll be out of action for say 16 days each year with certainty. Hell if I were working somewhere, I wouldn’t even have enough sick leave for me to take because of this!
And think of what my clients like Desmond here would think if I were MIA for so many days in a year.
Probably something along the lines of
“Mahaii… this Timothy always pretend that his cornea kena scratch to escape work. I bet now he’s not at the hospital but instead at some Strip Club enjoying himself.”
So I sat up from my seat and asked the Doc again
“WHAT?! So there is NOTHING I can do about this?!”
The Doc said
“Nope. Well we could do a surgery where we use a needle to poke your cornea or even scrape off your entire cornea and wait for it to grow a new one back… but even then it still might not solve the problem”.
I edged closer to the Doctor, looked him in eye and said
“So you’re saying… I can go through a surgery where I have you or someone poke my eye with a needle many many times to remove the entire outer layer, which sounds painful as hell to me… but even then it may not solve the problem?”
Tomorrow morning I am flying to Singapore… to see another Doctor there… for a second opinion.
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Updated
Hey after seeing the first few comments of this entry I think it’s drawing a bit of a somber mood. I am touched that you guys are concerned about me but at the same time this is not too big a deal okay everyone so don’t worry about me.
There are no long term effects of this, what this means is just that every now and then my eye will hurt and I won’t be able to open both my eyes for a few days while undergoing treatment. After that… like now it’ll just heal back again.
Like now.. see? I just took this picture a few minutes ago.
All healthy and all.. so don’t so somber okay.. cheer up a little bit…
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space