An Eye Opening Experience. . . . Literally

I had an appointment with my optometrist today.

I have developed a spot in my left eye.
I first saw him (The optometrist, not the spot) about two weeks ago about it. He couldn't really find much but he was interested enough to have me come back in two weeks later to re-check it.

Today was re-check day.

His assistant did the preliminary stuff as usual, and during the process she asked me if I was having any other problems with my eyes.
I still don't know what made me bring it up because I didn't think it was important enough to mention.

I guess I was just in a rather "talky" mood.

I told her that quite often it felt like there was something in my eye, but I could never find anything.
I didn't realize that I had, without meaning to, described an actual symptom of an actual problem.

Dr Hill (my Optometrist) was quite concerned and the bulk of my appointment was spent on further testing.

Who knew?

I will keep it really simple here. (mostly because I can't remember all of the technical jargon.)

I am the proud owner of . . . . . .

Dry Eyes!

Yes, you got that right, dry eyes.
There is one really fascinating thing I learned today.

It is possible when sleeping to have your eyes partly open.

I kinda knew that already because quite often Don has his eyes open just a little bit while sleeping.

I've always felt kinda smug about that.

I get a little jealous of him when it comes to sleeping because he can sleep any time, in any position, in even the most noisy or chaotic of circumstances.
A bad night for him is if he wakes up. He always goes immediately back to sleep. But to him that is a bad night.

Poor guy.

I, on the other hand, have a hard time,
getting to sleep,
staying asleep,
and just generally trying to be comfortable enough to not wake up 7 or 8 times a night.
Not to mention that every single time I wake up I seem to think it calls for a bathroom break.
I scold my mind all the time about that, but does it listen?
Not even once.

So the fact that Don sleeps with his eyes open just a tad, has always secretly pleased me.

You know?
Sure, he may sleep and sleep well, but at least I sleep with my eyes closed.

Well, I have nothing left to be smug about. It turns out that I, apparently, sleep with my eyes open a bit myself.
Do you know what happens to eyes that don't close all the way when sleeping?

They dry out.

Yes. That little slit that for whatever reason stays open, drys out while sleeping.
Eyes do not like dry conditions.
In fact eyes will even go as far as to protest such treatment by drying that little strip of exposed eye out.

Then, because they are dried out, the lids decide that they don't want to be left out and they also become dry.

Dry eyes? Dry lids? Outcome?

They get a bit sticky. And because of that stickiness, they stick.

To each other.

So what I am left with, are eyes that are constantly irritated from all of that stickiness.
They become tacky.
Eyes don't do well with tacky.

And I'm not talking about bright purple eye-shadow with florescent green eye-liner and gold dust mascara.

I mean tacky as in sticky.
Hmm, have I made that clear enough?

The moral of this story,
is that I am left with sore eyes that constantly have little scratches on the cornea and therefore always feel like they have something in them.

I am told I need eye-drops.

I went to Walmart and got a bottle of GOOD moisturizing eye-drops.

Now I have only one problem that I need to find a solution for. . . . . .

How to hide them from Shawn, so that he doesn't sneak into them and use them all up in less than a week.

Oh well, it's always something.