Tiffany Crystal's Forecast for the day:

Medical stuff, might be TL;DR for some of you, so feel free to skip this.

I finally got an appointment for my eye. I had to get up at 7am for an appointment at 8:50am. Got to the hospital, and was there until around 11 before I really got to the interesting stuff (I swear, at one point, I had six different people all crowded around me trying to get a turn to poke at my eye).

At first, one of the doctors suggested that instead of my left eye bulging, it could be that the childhood injury to my right eye was causing that eye to sink in. That would make the other eye appear to be sticking out. They did some more poking around, and discovered that no, that was not the case. Then they thought it might be the Lacrimal gland (no idea what that is, but it’s in the eye), but they wanted to do some more tests, so they passed me off to another doctor. A couple sonagrams later, they discovered what looked like a mass behind my left eye.

That started a round of questioning: “Have you been experiencing double vision?” No. “Are you experiencing joint pain?” No. “Any unexplained weight gain or loss?” Nope. And my favorite: “Have you developed any rashes?” Apparently there’s a disease that can cause the mass, but it’s usually accompanied with intense pain and rashes, neither of which have been a problem for me. Since they couldn’t really get a good look at it with the sonogram, they sent over a request for a CT scan – STAT (which apparently means “IMMEDIATELY”, as I found out).

Now here’s the thing. If you are not familiar with CT (cat) scans, this is what they do (or were going to do, in my case): they hook you up with an IV that puts a dye in your system (iodine, I believe), and then run you through this big white ring-shaped machine. Not a big deal.

Unless you’re me.

I can handle shots. They’re one and done, and I’m good. The area hurts for a while afterwards, of course, but I can deal with that, because it’s done.

An IV? Nope. Noppity Nope nope NOPE.

I got on the table, saw the IV tube, and yeah. I noped the fuck right out. The guy who was in charge tried to calm me down, but he was finally like “Okay, you’re hyperventilating…” Gee, ya’ think?! 

He was good though. Saw I was freaked out and told me, “You can refuse the dye. We can do the CT scan without it. The doctors won’t like it, and they’ll ask me why I didn’t use the dye, but the patient has their rights, too. I can just tell them ‘the patient refused’.” Then he backed off and let me get my breathing back under control.

I ended up telling him I couldn’t do it. Not with the IV. I told him all I’ll do is continue freaking out, and just no. If they want to do the scan with the IV,  they’re going to have to either sedate me, or deaden the arm. As long as I can’t feel it, I’m fine. I’ll keep my eyes closed until it’s over and we’re good. It’ll be like it didn’t even happen, and that is something I can work with.

So.

They did the CT scan without the contrast dye and they confirmed that yes, there is a mass above and behind my left eye. The guy said that, whatever it is, it’s solid, which means it is not fluid filled, so it’s not a cyst. That doesn’t tell us what it is, but it’s a start. He also said that the doctors might not choose to do another CT scan with the dye. He said, with it being solid, there’s not much more they can learn about it. They might end up doing a biopsy though.

The doctors are supposed to look at it and decide whether or not it warrants immediate action, and then give me a call.

In the meantime, just about everyone I know seems to be freaking out about it.  I’m chill. I have no reason to freak out yet. It doesn’t appear to be affecting my brain and it’s not affecting my vision, so until I have reason to be scared, I’m just taking it as another “day in the life.”

A couple funny moments throughout the day:

1. There were a bunch of trainees at the clinic, and they all wanted a chance to look at my eye (hence why I had 6 people at one point). They were all basically fighting over who got to take a look next. I sat back, put my feet up and told them, “Please continue. It’s been a while since I had a bunch of guys fighting over me.”
2. One of the doctors, I remember his name was Robert, he came in when I was telling one of the trainees “You were on my good side, now I don’t like you anymore!” His response: “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure we all get on your (switches to villain style voice) bad list.” Me: “Wait, what??” Him: “(normal voice) Oh, did that came out wrong? ( back to evil) Oops.” And then proceeded to poke and jab at my eye. Jackass.
3. Warned another of the trainees that he was in the perfect position for a nut punch (phrased much nicer, though) if he kept jabbing at me. He decided it was time to stand behind me instead.
4. The CT scan guy told me that the doctors might try to basically harass me into getting the IV. I told him that would be fun. It’s been a while since someone was foolish enough to try railroading me into something. He kept repeating “stick to your guns” until I reached out and told him: “Sir, I work retail. I’ve got this.” He hauled ass out of the room to get the machine started at that point.

Classes start again on Monday. History and Shakespeare. Actually kinda excited. We’ll see how long that lasts, lol.