Evil eye, and other malfunctions

Came back from allotment on Saturday, sat on bed for a leisurely cuppa, read and recover before getting dinner, while JN blasted out The Darkness' 'One Way Ticket to Hell and Back' downstairs. One of my eyes felt a bit funny -- and when I looked at a mirror, it was a bit puffy. By the time we finished dinner, the skin above my left eye was definitely swollen up. Maybe something had blown into it down the allotment -- though I hadn't noticed anything? Or perhaps it was reacting to the olive foot cream we brought back from Crete, which would have been on my hands just before I noticed the puffiness? Anyway, fingers crossed it would sort itself out overnight.

No. Sunday, I woke up in the dark and could feel that all around my eye was now swollen, so much I could barely see out. In the bathroom mirror, it looked like a shiny ball had taken over where my eye used to be, and if it inflated much more it might burst. Better try calling a doctor, I thought; time felt like middle of the night but my watch called it 5am. There's now an NHS Direct phone line here, so I called that: terribly nice lady took details, and said that a doctor could call me back but in about 7 hours. So I tried my own doctor's surgery number, which gave a night cover phone number: one of their duty doctors called back within about 10 minutes, and gave me an appointment at the new Laurels Health Centre just the other side of our allotments, opposite St Anns Hospital at 9am. I hauled a v. grumpy and reluctant Joseph along with me, just in case. Just one other person in the waiting room when we arrived so hauled out our stock of reading matter -- we had a good half hour wait anyway -- I suspect the doctors have a list of phone patients to talk to in between those who turn up in person. I couldn't find my glasses, so reading New Scientist was an arms' length squint. Nice young Indian doc listened, said that it was indeed a strong allergic reaction, checked there were no signs of inflammation or infection, dished me out a pack of steroid tablets and a prescription for antihistamines (when the local Tesco opened at 11am) and waved us off. Back home, I couldn't find my glasses...

So after breakfast with steroids (6 dissolved in water, once a day), off I set with my one working eye and swollen puffball I couldn't see out of, re-tracing our steps down to West Green Rd, then along to Tesco to collect the anti-histamines, then back to re-tracing the early morning track. Thank goodness they'd been handed into the receptionist -- must have fallen out of my bag when I first reached in for the magazines. So back home, to take my 1 antihistamine tab once a day, and wait for signs of the swelling going down. By dinner-time, it still seemed no less swollen, and I reckoned I could feel more swelling underway. So I phoned the night-docs again, about 21.30hrs: Older Indian doc told me I should go to nearest hospital Casualty, which he said was St Anns; this time JN made no demural about escorting me. Chap at St Anns gate said 'No casualty here', it's just a mental hospital these days, with a local campaign fighting against plans to close it down. So I headed for The Laurels again; again, one other pair in the waiting room. Very tired-looking receptionist called the night-doc HQ, to get them to put me on her appointments system for the duty doc there to see. Nice lady doc duly checked eye for inflammation etc, and said that the steroids take 24 hrs to kick in and start reducing the allergic reaction. We had missed asking the original doc this vital question about how long it would take for the treatment to work -- and he should have thought to explain. The nice lady also recommended using cool-pack or ice-bag on the swelling, and sleeping with head elevated, so fluid drains from the swelling rather than pooling there. 'So do you feel healthy in yourself?' she asked, as a sort of final general check. 'Good thing I am,' I answered, 'with all this tramping through the cold to get to a health service -- really wouldn't be doing a sick person any good at all.'

This morning, Monday: eye now opens, and has a definite eyelid instead of a puffy ball. Still looks pretty horribly disgusting -- but only about a third the size it was yesterday. So the drugs are working; I'll werk at home tomorrow, rather than go in to the office and frighten the horses, but fingers crossed feel able to show up for meetings in Peterborough on Weds and rest of the week.

After several years getting by without troubling the health service at all, I seem to be having a spate of breaking down: have had reading glasses for small print for a few years now -- but this visit, the optician recommended varifocals and I've found that trees have regained miraculous depths of dynamic detail instead of being just green (or at this season, gold) bulk. Optician also recommended I see my GP and get a blood test: cholesterol far higher than it should be, so no more starting the day on an egg, I reckon. JN has just made himself his first GP appointment for years to get himself blood-tested. Then we need to see dietician, to clarify just how much or little of what we can eat.

Then there's the weird toe-nails, which were definitely doing their best to become ingrowing. Eventually, one of them showed signs of infection starting up -- so I hobbled off to ask a couple of likely neighbours about local chiropodists, and fixed up the see the one who shows up two days a week at a pharmacy just around the corner on Philip Lane. He delicately cut out a strip down the side of the offending toe, removed a deep corn (which I'd been trying to treat as a verruca, so relief that it was not), and produced a whirring electric file to file down the rest of my weird pedal claws back into proper toenails.

But I mustn't go swimming for a couple of weeks until the no-longer-ingrown toenail healed over. And now I can't go swimming until my eye has gone down. Waah. Next thing you know I'll be breaking down again for lack of exercise. Apart from that, though, I'm just fine.