A bad eye.

March 26, 2014, Mena, Arkansas (fairgrounds, 80 miles.)

At about three o’clock this afternoon I started feeling pain in my left eye and rubbed some white gunk out if it. By the time the first show was over, my eye was swollen shut by the gunk and the pain was palpable.
That’s when I thought I ought to see a doctor.
I’ve had eye infections before, but one so fast and furious. I had one in the last months of Nicolas’ pregnancy and it took two weeks to become this bad. There was no urgent care in this town and by the time I called all clinics around were closed so the only option was the hospital, unfortunately. Fridman asked Jeremiah to drive me and off we went, only to realize the hospital was right around the corner behind the woods. A lot of waiting (“A patient just died so the doctor will be with you in just a little while,” sort of put things in perspective, or made me want to run off, I’m not sure,) four minutes of washing my eye with warm water and a prescription for antibiotics and drops for what the doctor called “a heck of an eye infection” later Jeremiah picked me up again and I was back home, wondering if the $971 bill was a sign I should have bitten the bullet overnight.
But eye infections scare me, and being already deaf, the risk of a damaged eye tends to loom like a real problem. So I’m grateful for Obamacare and that we are now fully insured.
Today the eye still hurts and the Elephant Woman look is still there, but that was to be expected.