*****************************************************************************************************************************
The star in my eye apparently ceased troubling my mom since then...it was a case of Gita's dictum:
But my dalliance with ophthalmoscopes didn't....till today...always at the wrong end of the scope.
In 1958 I shifted to Vizagh for my University studies and started living in my M.D. Uncle's house...the one who was pronounced "He was God!...he was Genius!" by his erstwhile student the other day in Hyderabad.
And pretty soon an absolutely novel and painful trouble arose with my eyes...now both...stereo.
Uncle inspected them and called them: "Multiple sties"
At first I was taken aback since the only sty I knew was where Lord Emsworth kept his Empress of Blandings and worried sick over her feed...some feed.
The ones that troubled me endlessly for all of 7 years as long as I was in Vizagh are better described by Webster in their gory detail:
Webster is fudging...he knows nothing of sties...both internal and external as he dubs them. Maybe he was speaking of American sties...not the incorrigible Vizagh variety.
Like Angela's shark, my sties were extra-special...one morning there is a pleasant itching sensation in one of the eyes. You rub it and rub it till the eye grows red. And the next day there is a hard mass appearing on the inner or outer eyelid concerned...pick your choice. And it pains like hell. The next morning it swells and stings. The next morning it bursts and red blood and white pus ooze...and the pain subsides after spoiling the only hankie you have.
And it was bliss since you had ample evidence to skip the Optics Lab.
Before you settle down and try to focus on the wretched Newton's rings, there is this pleasant itching in the other eye...and so and so forth and so long that the optics professor drives you out of the lab for fear you would infect his eyes...
Bliss again till it breaks.
Unable to bear the sties any longer I complained to my Uncle who inspected the thing from a safe distance and pronounced it strepto...or was it staphylo...cocci at work assiduously.
I felt that morphology was alright as far it went but it didn't go too far. I asked him for a cure or at least a relief. And he asked me to go in for Boric Acid fomentation.
Boric Acid powder is damn good for smoothing the rough and jagged surfaces of carrom boards...but it was no good for sties...the cocci were too smart for Boric Acid.
After a couple of years of intense suffering, I approached (or is it supprosed?) my Uncle again saying that he could keep his Boric Acid to himself and let me know the latest in ophthalmology.
And then he sent me to the biggest eye-doc at the King George Hospital, with a massive reco.
This guy examined my latest sty and said that sties attack weak eyes and so I better get my power checked and corrected.
That was the beginning of my visits to eye-docs that continue...
...Posted by Ishani
************************************************************************************************************************
The star in my eye apparently ceased troubling my mom since then...it was a case of Gita's dictum:
Karmanyeva adhikarasthe
But my dalliance with ophthalmoscopes didn't....till today...always at the wrong end of the scope.
In 1958 I shifted to Vizagh for my University studies and started living in my M.D. Uncle's house...the one who was pronounced "He was God!...he was Genius!" by his erstwhile student the other day in Hyderabad.
And pretty soon an absolutely novel and painful trouble arose with my eyes...now both...stereo.
Uncle inspected them and called them: "Multiple sties"
At first I was taken aback since the only sty I knew was where Lord Emsworth kept his Empress of Blandings and worried sick over her feed...some feed.
The ones that troubled me endlessly for all of 7 years as long as I was in Vizagh are better described by Webster in their gory detail:
Infection of an eyelid gland. An external sty results from infection of a sebaceous gland at the edge of the eyelid; tears flow and the eye feels tender, as if something is in it. The sty reddens and swells. Warm compresses help it break sooner. An internal sty is caused by infection of a meibomian gland under the eyelid lining. More painful than an external sty, it usually breaks through the inner lining of the lid when it discharges and may leave a painless cyst (chalazion) at the site. See also boil.
Like Angela's shark, my sties were extra-special...one morning there is a pleasant itching sensation in one of the eyes. You rub it and rub it till the eye grows red. And the next day there is a hard mass appearing on the inner or outer eyelid concerned...pick your choice. And it pains like hell. The next morning it swells and stings. The next morning it bursts and red blood and white pus ooze...and the pain subsides after spoiling the only hankie you have.
And it was bliss since you had ample evidence to skip the Optics Lab.
Before you settle down and try to focus on the wretched Newton's rings, there is this pleasant itching in the other eye...and so and so forth and so long that the optics professor drives you out of the lab for fear you would infect his eyes...
Bliss again till it breaks.
Unable to bear the sties any longer I complained to my Uncle who inspected the thing from a safe distance and pronounced it strepto...or was it staphylo...cocci at work assiduously.
I felt that morphology was alright as far it went but it didn't go too far. I asked him for a cure or at least a relief. And he asked me to go in for Boric Acid fomentation.
Boric Acid powder is damn good for smoothing the rough and jagged surfaces of carrom boards...but it was no good for sties...the cocci were too smart for Boric Acid.
After a couple of years of intense suffering, I approached (or is it supprosed?) my Uncle again saying that he could keep his Boric Acid to himself and let me know the latest in ophthalmology.
And then he sent me to the biggest eye-doc at the King George Hospital, with a massive reco.
This guy examined my latest sty and said that sties attack weak eyes and so I better get my power checked and corrected.
That was the beginning of my visits to eye-docs that continue...
...Posted by Ishani
************************************************************************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment