The Eyeball Saga

As everyone knows, I had a pretty kick-ass time on my trip, which includes the pre-trip road trip (best friends and babies) and the actual time I spent in LA (ten days of geeking out on writing and reading; bliss).

There was one minor issue, though -- an issue that plagued me for the entirety of the trip and continues to plague me now.

It began in Medford, when I was visiting Tara and Mandy (best friends since birth), Carl (Tara's husband) and Preston (the sweetest baby ... ever). I kept feeling like there was something in both my eyes. I figured it was the drier Medford air that was causing them to be so irritated. Tara, the Queen of Eye Issues, gave me some eye drops and I switched from contacts to glasses.

Now, let me explain something. I have two pairs of glasses. One is really cute: purple, slanted, adorable. The other is my absolute back-up pair, the one I don't actually want to wear in public but will wear when I'm reading in bed at night. This pair was never fitted properly and hangs on my face at a diagnol. I am constantly having to readjust. And if I look down ever so slightly, the glasses slide down my nose and onto the floor below. I am forever pushing them back on my nose, fixing the warped angle. These glasses are the devil.

Wouldn't you know it that about a month before my trip, my cute purple glasses disappeared. Vanished. Gone. So I took my back-up pair, comforted by the fact that I never have to wear 'em during daylight hours.

Yeah, so, these ended up being the glasses I've had to wear during the eyeball saga. Life could not get any more ridiculous.

So back in Medford, I assumed my eye dilemma would solve itself by the time I got to Sacramento to visit Allison (best friend from high school), Danny (her husband), and Madison and Jack (their beautiful children). It did not solve itself. I was forced to continue wearing the glasses, which made me look like some sort of deranged artist.

Fitting, I suppose.

In LA, things went from bad to worse. What began as minor irritation became a full-fledged takeover of my eyes. I woke up on the second day of school to eyes so bright red, it was painful to look at them in the mirror.

At school, I approached one of the faculty members, asked if she could recommend an eye doctor. When I lifted my sunglasses to show her the problem underneath, she recoiled. Honestly, legititmately recoiled. I don't know if you've ever had the pleasurable experience of having someone recoil from you, but let's just say it's not exactly a confidence booster.

Several hours later, the director of the program takes me aside. "Kristen," he says. "I hear you might have pink eye."

Whaaaaat? How did we go from me asking for help finding an eye doctor because my eyes are clearly having some sort of allergic reaction or irritation of some kind to assuming I have pink eye?

He suggested I "go get that taken care of because this stuff can really get around," which basically had the effect of making me feel like a dirty whore. And was also mildly annoying considering the fact that I had already made an appointment for the following morning and clearly, on my own, wanted to "get this taken care of." They were my eyes, after all. I was the one experiencing intense discomfort while in a city that's not my own. But thanks for the concern ...

Anyway, the doctor instructed me to use these steroid eye drops for ten days, four times a day. Ten more days of me wearing my cartoonish glasses. Fabulous.

I did it, ten whole days. Then finally, I slipped into a fresh pair of contacts, expecting to feel intense relief at being able to pull them off ... Nope. My eyes still got red and irritated. After two days of wearing contacts and eye makeup for the rehearsal and wedding of my amazing friends Lucas and Leslie, my eyes were done. Red. Raw. Ready to make someone else recoil.

So, visit to the eye doctor: Take 2. New city, new doctor. She delivered the fantastic news, which is that I needed to go back on the eye drops and back on the clown glasses for another week. Fantastic.

Which is where I am right now, fighting these awful glasses that slide down my face every .5 seconds and longing for the days when I didn't have to worry about anyone crossing my path thinking that I am a crack addict and/or diseased person.

I go back to the doctor on Friday. Let me just make it clear right now that if my eyes aren't totally better by then, it's not gonna be pretty.