Another Seppo Update

Seppo’s account of the ordeal and his update from Wednesday.

Basically, he is getting MUCH better. Vision is not 100% yet, but it’s unclear how much is due to the cornea edema & abrasion (or do I mean “or”? are they the same? I don’t know) which is clearing up and how much is the imperfect vision correction that the “bandage” contacts are providing.

There is a huge decrease in pain, which is a huge relief. And while he’s still light-sensitive, he can hang out in the livingroom ok. Go drop him a little note of encouragement. 🙂

Seppo Update

So I know some of you have heard and some others haven’t, so here is a recap. The bottom line is that Seppo has debilitating amounts of pain in his eyes and that the eye doctors are treating him for cornea irritation. The other important thing is that his vision is not affected so no one is going blind here, so no worries on that front. The story so far:

Seppo felt some stinging in his eyes starting mid-week last week, but it was at small irritation levels, so he chalked it up to allergies and left it at that. Friday, on his way to work, he started to experience alarming levels of intense stinging. By 10 in the morning, he had to ask a coworker to take him into an emergency care facility. There, they concluded that he was having an allergic reaction, so they gave him a benedryl shot and numbing eyedrops and sent him on his way with a prescription for benedryl. The drops did their job and after a nap to recover from the benedryl, Seppo came home early.

When I got home, I gave him some over-the-counter benedryl, both of us still under the assumption that this was allergy-related, although Seppo noticed that he did not have his usual gamut of symptoms. By 10pm Friday night, the drops had worn off and Seppo’s eyes were streaming tears, which ironically were making his eyes sting even worse. He couldn’t keep his eyes open for more than a second or so at a time and he was curled up in pain and frustration. I drove him to the ER, where we were seen within the hour.

The doctor there confirmed that he didn’t think it was allergies either, and that he didn’t see any obstructions or abrasions. He checked out Seppo’s vision after putting in some numbing drops. Thankfully, his vision seems to be completely fine, as far as they can tell. It’s that he can’t open his eyes to see due to the pain. He did a pressure test and even took a PH test on his eyes, but couldn’t figure out what the problem was. He prescribed Seppo some Vicodin, which we couldn’t get filled in the middle of the night. He said if the pain continued for more than two days, to come back.

This didn’t seem very satisfactory, but there was nothing we felt we could do at the moment, so we decided that first thing in the morning, we’d go to his optometrist and get the prescription filled out.

Come Saturday morning, Seppo was in a worse state than the night before from the pain. I rushed to drop off his Vicodin and Benedryl prescriptions and took him into his optometrist. Seppo wanted to see them before the drugs took effect so the doctor could see all the symptoms in place. They were accomodating and saw him right away instead of making him wait. Again, they put numbing drops in his eyes, which helped immensely. The doctor examined his eyes extensively and thought that while he didn’t know what caused it, the problem was cornea irritation.

He put some contacts in Seppo’s eyes that are meant to be worn overnight, and prescribed 3 different kinds of eyedrops: one for pain, one antibiotic, and one for allergies. We scheduled a return visit for Monday (today) and were sent home. After several hours at home, when the numbing drops wore off — again — we used the eyedrops meant for easing pain and found it did almost nothing. Calling the doctor, we found that they were different from the drops they had at the office. The ones they used at the ER and at the doctor’s office are not for prescription as continued use can damage the cornea. Unfortunately, the prescribed one was not as efficacious for Seppo, even though they are usually used for post-cornea surgery treatment.

So over the weekend, we had Seppo on antibiotic drops, painkiller drops, and Vicodin every 6 hours. We didn’t use Benedryl w/ the Vicodin because they were prescribed by two different ERs and it seemed like a recipe for disaster to mix. We also didn’t use the allergy eyedrops because it seemed like they were saying we should use them if he was having allergies but he didn’t seem to be having allergies.

We went back today, and the Seppo’s usual doctor was able to see him, instead of the other person that saw him on Saturday. She ran a bunch of tests and looked at his eyes with a bunch of different things, and put various things in his eyes. She saw cornea irritation too, but she couldn’t tell if it was better or worse than Saturday, since a different doctor had seen him originally, while she was not in the office. She prescribed yet another medicine, which I’ll be picking up shortly, and recommended that we use the allergy drops daily as well.

Seppo thinks the stinging pain has decreased somewhat, but it’s not clear if it’s from the Vicodin working or from the cornea healing from the mixture of antibiotics and contacts (which are acting as a bandage, sort of, in that they are keeping the irritated area covered from further irritation). We’ll see on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the combination of Vicodin & needing to keep his eyes closed (as blinking or any movement of the eyeballs triggers the pain) is keeping Seppo sleeping most of the day. He spent the entire weekend when we were not at the doctor huddled under a blanket in the bedroom with his eyes covered. He is obviously taking the day off, and I am working from home to make sure he’s doing alright, and feeding him and medicating him on a schedule. He’s handling things pretty well, given the circumstances, and working through the pain. It’s particularly frustrating for him because he can’t keep his eyes open, so most of the things he’d do to entertain himself are out. He listened to a bunch of Top Gear episodes — thanks Dre!

Anyway, Seppo is taking off from work at least until Thursday, since we have another appointment on Wednesday. I hope he heals up quickly. Gotta go get that last prescription now.

Inconsequential Question of the Day

At my work, there is one bathroom. We have two roll-holders which are the normal roll holders, not those industrial-sized movie-theater mega-rolls. We, the employees, refill the TP rolls as we see fit from a closet near the bathroom.

Let’s say you are in the bathroom, engaging in normal bathroom business of the variety you’d engage in if you are not a strangely repressed politician at an airport. One roll appears to be, say, 80% full, and the other, 20%.

Which do you pull from? My answer in comments.

Juno

Just watched it yesterday. Loved it. I thought it was going to be too intentionally, self-consciously quirky for me to love, but I did. I don’t have anything particularly insightful to say, as I’m catching up on work, but I just wanted to leave a note. It’s probably my favorite movie I’ve seen in the last year.

Random updates

My little brother visited from 6/24 to 7/24. I miss him already! He was a good commuter companion, intern, and sous-chef.

Work is kicking my butt. But hopefully, things are getting to a good, stable point.

Little D is growing big! Very exciting to see his changes from week to week.

Seppo and I are going to visit Atlanta at the end of August, for my brother’s family celebration. My brother is meeting his in-laws for the first time and baby Ryan is turning 1, so they combined the events into a big to-do, with a catered venue and everything.

I want to go back to Tulum.

Oh, and I got a short haircut. And an iPhone for my b-day, from a couple of friends & Seppo. It is awesome! The haircut is just ok. They gave me a braid of hair to donate to Locks of Love, which I had better get on right away, before I forget.

I don’t think I have anything else to report.

New locations

I hope you were able to find this blog. 😀

helava.com => helavagames.blogspot.com
food.helava.com => wenomnom.blogspot.com (“we nom nom” :D)
inciteanovel.helava.com => inciteanovel.blogspot.com

ATTN: Moving!

This blog is moving to http://inciteariot.blogspot.com. I’ll put notes there about where the food blog is going to end up.

I lied. It’s moving to http://eingy.blogspot.com.

This blog is moving!!!

We are relinquishing the helava.com domain for Seppo’s dad’s business, so we’ll be moving all our __.helava.com domains, including this one, the food one, and the rarely active inciteanovel one. This one may end up on papercupgames.com or on blogspot. I am not sure yet. I will need to decide by tonight though!

I will post a note here before I actually move the domains.

No, I have not started my own business…

… selling dvds, cameras, and printers.

My yahoo account’s contact list has been compromised. 🙁 I am sorry if someone or spambot sent you email pretending to be me. It’s not me. You know I don’t use that email account anyway. Still, so sorry.

Gardener love

I am working from home today because I had to see the doc about some weird cyst in my hand that appeared then ruptured, but it is apparently one hundred percent benign, so please don’t worry. I am cyst-prone anyway and have developed a bunch in the past.

Er… anyway. So I am working from home. And the yard crew has done — and are currently doing — amazing things. All the trees are pruned and all the brush has been cleared away. We definitely have to figure out what kind of ground cover we want before the next rainy season, as the ground is bare and expected to be for as long as they are coming back to maintain.

There is just so much land back there that it’s insane. Everyone should drop by to see. It makes no sense how clear it is. How can human beings have done so much in such a short amount of time, and in this sweltering heat?

Speaking of sweltering heat, I felt so bad for the guys that I bought a bag of ice and a pack of gatorade and set them up outside next to a giant pitcher of ice water. I don’t think the ice will last long in the heat, but at least I tried. I also invited them inside to take a break, but I don’t think they felt comfortable doing so. 🙁