I’ll start with a warning: Don’t read on if you’re squeamish about eyes.
Last Tuesday, I thought running my two dogs with my parent’s pup would be a good idea. Anyone with dogs will understand the bliss that accompanies tired, sleeping dogs. Plus, I had an ulterior motive that if the dogs were tired out, I could get some work done.
Up we went to the field, armed with three tennis balls (one for each of them) and a wanger!
Great fun was had by all – perhaps a little too much. Charlie Brown (I’ve mentioned him before in these blogs) is now eight months old and 23kg. He’s going to be a big lad, like his two cousins. He can also jump quite high…
Excitement was building to bursting point, and the ball just wasn’t being thrown fast enough – my bad.
So, Charlie decided to jump to get the ball as I was going down to get the ball.
Clash!
Thankfully, I turned my head just at the last moment, but the little monkey caught my eye. He didn’t mean to; just a case of too much excitement and a big puppy.
The initial damage report was a cut to the eyelid and a bump to the eyeball (or so I thought). A quick phone call to our fantastic optician Tracey told me what to do – remove contact lenses and flush the eye.
It was a bit bloodshot and felt a bit gritty, but not too bad.
However, over the next few days, two scary things happened:
- I had to come to work with no makeup on – sorry to all my patients those days!
- It got worse!
A trip to Tracey then revealed that Charlie had actually scratched my eyeball. My vision was fine, but it just really ached.
However, the human body is amazing; today, one week on, it’s much better.
This is a typical pattern that we see in the clinic. Things often get worse before they improve, and I am offering myself as human proof that this is the case.
Sometimes, our patients expect miracles and are disappointed if they’re not loads better by their second appointment. The reality is we have to work with your body’s natural healing processes, optimising them as much as we can, BUT it’s still biology at the end of the day and needs to run its course. Ironically, the one thing we have in clinic that speeds up healing (the K-Laser) can’t be used on eyes!
Things take time and sometimes get worse before they get better. Just because it feels worse now, doesn’t mean it won’t get better.
Until next time,
Charlotte
P.S. Charlie is now in ‘boot camp’ and is sitting beautifully before the ball gets ‘wanged’. He’s like a coiled spring though, ready to pounce at any moment, and I wouldn’t change him for a second 🥰
