So you guys remember my stye?


the first day


getting worse

Yeah, that one. I named it Stye Stallone. So, the antibiotics I was on didn’t make Stye Stallone go away. I called Dr. Looove back last Friday and she told me I needed to see an ophthalmologist immediately to have it lanced and drained. So, I psyched myself up, and off I went.

stye stallone

Except, the ophthalmologist who saw me on Friday decided my eye was too swollen to do anything, and prescribed me eye drops and eye wipes, and told me to use lots of hot compresses. If Stye Stallone didn’t go away, I was to come back on Tuesday. I was like, “YES! NO SCALPEL!” and went on my way.

Sunday morning I looked like this:

stye stallone

The whole left side of my face throbbed with every beat of my heart. I had to sleep sitting up because if my head was too low it felt like my face might explode. I kept using the wipes and drops and heat. Annie would look at me and point.

Yesterday, I looked like this:

the worst it got

Do you see that white shiny spot? That is a STRETCH MARK. The whole left side of my head hurt. I had to exert effort to open my eye that much. The skin also itched from being stretched so much. We had to take Annie in for her one-year check up, and the second Dr. Looove saw my eye, she had her assistant call the eye center to get me in immediately.

I saw a different ophthalmologist (who looked like a Ken doll) and begged him to remove Stye Stallone. He said that normally these things are drained by flipping the eyelid inside out, but my eye was too swollen for that. So, he had to go in through the top.

BUT FIRST Dr. Ken had to numb my eye and eyelid. I had numbing drops, and then a few minutes later Dr. Ken came at me with a needle to numb the skin. He said, “Look to your right. When you feel a needle prick, DO NOT MOVE. The needle is very close to your eye and I don’t want to stab it.”

OH EM GEE.

After about ten minutes, it was time for the procedure to begin. Dr. Ken and his assistant placed a plastic sheet with a strategically placed eye hole over my face. Then my eyelid was clamped, and then I had to mentally check out because my EYELID was CLAMPED. Dr. Ken, despite the fact I told him I just wanted to know when it was over, kept telling me what was going on. I had to stop listening after he said, “pus.”

When the procedure was over, he was talking to his assistant and then I heard him say, “I am thinking about putting stitches in.” PEOPLE. You know how I feel about stitches. It was then that I started to hyperventilate. STITCHES BY MY EYE!!! I started talking him out of it. “It’s OK if I have a scar, seriously, it’s just my eyelid, I am good at makeup, really, I promise.” Eventually he and his assistant decided not to put in stitches because they wanted my eye to be able to keep draining. Yuck.

post-op

My compression eye patch! So sexy.

Dr. Ken was able to get out a lot of pus, fluid build-up and inflamed tissue. There was a lot of swelling at first, but now my eye is looking so much better, if not a little floppy:

deflated
telling Mike to hurry up and take the effing picture

deflated
the angle and lighting aren’t super-flattering to my schnoz

Stye Stallone is gone! I have an ointment I have to keep putting on my eyelid, and I have to sleep sitting up for a few days. The only thing I can take for the discomfort is Tylenol, since anything else could make me bleed (ew). I have to be extra-careful that my hair doesn’t get on my eyelid, so I’ll be sporting lots of bang braids.

I still think I need an eye patch. Also, what kind of food do you get to eat for a stye-ectomy? Tonsils get ice cream, dental work gets mushy foods….I think a stye-ectomy demands lobster.