so gross.

(Meet my right eye of death. It's blurry, oozy and RED. My left one is slightly less red)

On Sunday I woke up after 4 hours of sleep (our school had our year end party and bowling until 2am that night) and headed to Osaka. My eyes were kind of red but I thought it was due to the lack of sleep. Unfortunately, as the day progressed, my eyes got redder and redder and started to ooze what can only be described as eye snot. Elspeth kindly dragged me to a drugstore, explained my problem and I got some medicated eye drops. That night my eyes swelled up and sealed themselves shut. Yeah, can we say gross!?

Well, I emailed my manager to tell her that I thought I needed to see a doctor and this morning I met my assistant manager, Yasu and we went to the optometrist near Obu station. From the minute they called my name, it was the weirdest doctor's experience of my life. First of all, three patients were seen at the same time. We all sat on tiny stools and the doctor, with his two nurses went down the line examining us. I was given an eye test, which I hoped showed them my right eye was blurry. Then I saw the doctor alone. He basically did an eye exam. But get this - he didn't ask me a single question. Not one. No 'so what's bothering you?' or 'what happened to make your eyes so bloody looking?'

(Sunday night - and we thought my eyes were bad then...oh how wrong we were)

The next thing I know, he's grabbed my face (and he wasn't gentle) pried open my eyes and is picking eyedroppers of liquid from a table of old-fashioned looking bottles. Think blue glass bottles and small jars of uncovered (and sketchily unhygienic looking) pastes. He puts a variety of drops in my eyes (I think he was grabbing my face so hard 'cause I was panicking and trying to turn my head and look at Yasu with pleading eyes) and then the freakiest thing, he took a stick, dipped into something that looked like vaseline and wiped it on the inside of my eyelids. I was sent to 'relax' in a chair under a heat lamp, which melted the vaseline into a gooey mess in my eyes and blurred my vision even worse.

(Trying Elspeth's mom's tea bag remedy - almost dyed my skin but unfortunately didn't seem to work)

He gave me two bottles of eyedrops and then told Yasu that one was to treat a virus, the other for allergies because he wasn't quite sure which it was. When Yasu asked him if it was contagious (I was concerned I had pink eye and could spread it to my students) he said he couldn't be sure but not to touch any kids or adults....ok....thanks....that was helpful. We both left completely confused.

After 3 doses of drops the left eye appears to be clearing up. All day my students have been asking me what the heck is wrong with my eyes. One of my kids students just stared at me with a horrified look on his face. I don't blame him. Let's all pray this goes away before I leave on Sunday...I'm having nightmares that they won't let me on the plane in case I infect everyone!

(So, taking digital macro photos of your own eyes is possibly the most disturbing thing to do)