#85. or, do i have something in my eye?

  Sometimes, over the course of doing what i do, things get broken. Often when that happens, it requires a simple fix like welding one broken piece back to another. Occasionally, i have to do some grinding with an electric grinder to make pieces fit together better to be welded, or maybe, it requires a bit of grinding the clean up the weld a little before it can be painted again. When you do any grinding, you should ALWAYS wear safety glasses!

  I've had bits of metal in my eye from a grinder on two occasions where i needed to go to the hospital to have it removed.

  The first time, I though that if i would just tough it out, it would eventually work it's way out on it's own. Metal on your eyeball doesn't work it's way out on it's own. Because it came off the grinder as a red hot spark, it sort of sears itself onto the surface of your eye. Then it starts to rust. By the time i finally decided that i required medical  attention to fix this, it was a bit of a mess. (actually, it was my wife who said, "get your ass to the hospital before you go blind!") The first thing that the doctor does, is give you a tube of sticky, gooey, stuff. Because i don't know the medical term for it, i'm going to call it opti-gook. You're supposed to squeeze the opti-gook into your eye and let it grab a hold of the foreign object. It doesn't really work, or it has never worked for me. It's sort of like pouring honey into your eye, and trying to blink. I would use the opti-gook overnight, then go to the hospital where the doctor would try to scrape the metal off of my eye. I did that for about three days before a nurse took me aside and told me to request a specialist before that quack ruined my eyeball. (which was rather nice of her) The specialist got it out but i have a permanent smudge on my pupil from that one.

  The second time i knew right away i needed to see the doctor when my wife couldn't scrape it off with a pin. Because it was quite short notice, the only doctor on call that day was about 115 years old. They put drops into my eye that freeze the surface. They don't really like to do that though because apparently, when your eyeball is frozen, you could repeatedly stab yourself in it with a pencil or some other blunt object without ever realizing it. Anyways, after it's frozen, they use a tiny spoon affair to scrape the metal off your eye. It's required of you, throughout this procedure, to keep your eye wide open. This gets to be a little freaky when your 115 year old doctor is bearing down on your eyeball with a spoon in his hand that's shaking like a crack addict in rehab. In the end, he got it out and i still have all of my eyeball to boot.

  Now, the reason i'm giving you all this background information, is because yesterday, i had an appointment  scheduled for me to get an MRI on my shoulder. I've been having some trouble with it and they think it's the next step in the process. What's that got to do with eyeballs? Well, to have a MRI, you need to pass a checklist of not having any foreign metal in your body. I was going through the list just fine until  they asked if i had ever had any metal in my eyes. Apparently, the MRI machine will suck any metal you may have left, right out of your eyeball! Which might seem like a good thing but rather unpleasant at the same time.

  Now, i have to get something called an orbital X-ray of my head before i'm cleared for the MRI. I'm hoping that i pass that test because it was the only thing that i failed on the checklist and even though i didn't study, it would be nice to get 100%. If i don't, i wonder if i have to wear lead goggles or something resistant to magnetism. Just in case, i think i'm going to do some squinting exercises to make sure i have the strength to keep my eyeball in my head on the off chance they miss something.

 ..............i think i might be OK though, i just tried to stick a fridge magnet to my eyeball and nothing happened. I probably don't have anything to worry about.