Insulation Strikes Back

A short “moral of the story” tale for you today, and (like a lot in my life at the moment) it involves insulation. Last week I was taking down all the insulation that had been up in my garage before. (You’ll recall the fun little story I wrote about that experience.)

Well, one snippet I failed to mention in that story was that at one point I was taking down insulation right over my head, and pieces of it drifted down through the air, softly, gently.

Right into my left eye.

It wasn’t a big piece that got in there. I blinked and it was more than a little uncomfortable, and I was worried, but the feeling passed, and I kept working. Fast forward ahead two days, and I’m lying in my bed and my left eye starts going crazy. Watering like mad. It feels like all the eyelashes have come to have a party in there. So I go to a mirror to check things out, but it looks like the eye is clear. I flush it with water and move on with my life.

The next day, I’m complaining about my eye to Denisa when I suddenly realize that’s the same eye I got insulation in. Insulation batting is basically glass. I’m aware of this, but this is the first time I thought “Oh no. I might have sliced my eye somehow.”

I go check things out in a mirror again, but of course there’s still nothing there. However, the bit of Googling I do afterward convinces me that this is serious, and I shouldn’t mess around with it. So I make an appointment with my eye doctor the next morning. He takes one look and sure enough, there’s a big slice off my eyeball. He’s impressed it didn’t hurt me more, because apparently it should have. A lot. He drops some dye in my eye (because I guess you get to do that if you’re an eye ninja or something) to check if there’s any insulation left. He also turns my eyelid inside out to check up inside there.

This is a less than pleasant experience.

Long story short, I get a clean bill of health, but I need to be taking antibiotic eye drops for the next several days.

Moral of the story? If you get insulation in your eye, go see a doctor. And don’t rub your eye.

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