Something irritated my eye last night. I took the common, usually effective approach of gingerly rubbing my eye to dislodge whatever it was. Well, common for me. Then I made some tears and figured that would wash it out. 5 minutes later the irritation returned, and persisted no matter what I did. Also, stayed awake all night due to waking up horrendously late yesterday. Staring at the computer monitor didn't help. Washed my eye out with visine, it burned. Used some eye wash, it irritated what's left of the human nictitating membrane. Resolved that I damaged my eye, but it doesn't feel like my cornea is damaged, just the surface of the sclera toward the bridge of my nose. Now I'm wearing an eye patch. That actually relieved most of the discomfort. However, in adjusting to seeing with only one eye, I haven't gotten over the nausea of, well, seeing with one eye. See, I don't normally close one eye for more than 5 seconds. It's so far been about 4 hours. Plus, apparently I haven't gotten what irritated my eye out in the first place, and can't see it upon inspection, though it rarely bothers me. My eye is only slightly red (like the most mild case of pink eye ever), and in fact it took about 15 seconds to determine that my left eye actually looked irritated. So, I don't think I need to go to the hospital. That may end up getting me trapped in a public place during the hurricane, and as such part of the panic. If my eye seriously hurt I'd do something more, and even though I'm not an opthamologist I doubt I'm going to develop any ulcers on my eye so long as I regularly clean it.
I had to have an eye patch for about 2 weeks when I was 6. My landlord's cat was sitting next to me and I was petting it for about 15 minutes, then it freaked and scratched my eyeball.
Wow. That reminds me of when I was around 8 and while not entirely paying attention to my surroundings, knocked a sheet of poster-board from the wall next to me and it caught the wind in just a way to drag a part of the edge across my eye. Luckily, no harm was done. Honestly I can't recall exactly how it happened, but it slipped and fell close enough to my eye as I walked up the staircase that it actually grazed me. Damn, though. The cat caught your eye? I know a guy who ran the local bowling alley that had a shrunken and split eye when I was really young, maybe 3 or so. I asked him about it and he bluntly said it was cut in a fight.
I pulled back just enough that I sustained only a small cut to the white part of my eye. Didn't notice it until about 3 hrs later that my eye was bleeding. Had a medicated gauze pad taped over my eye for about a week, then the doctor wanted me to keep a patch on it for an extra week to ensure that it healed properly.
It's good that it didn't cause you an inordinate amount of pain. And that it was only the white of your eye. I heard in an anecdotal tale from a friend that corneal abrasions can be more painful than childbirth. He was told this by a woman who apparently had experience of both.
A girl stabbed me in the eye with a lip gloss wand once. It was glittery and smelled of maple syrup. My vision was blurred for a couple days.
Damn, I wish I had a good excuse to look like a pirate. About stories of eye damage, someone who was on my school bus had a stick fight with a friend when he was about 3; they were just throwing sticks and twigs at each other. Unfortunately one of them went in his eye, leaving him permanently blinded and also discolouring his once blue eye an unnatural brown colour. If you looked close enough at it you could even see the small scar in the white of his eye where the stick entered, also seeing as it was a real eyeball it would still look at you when you talked to him unlike a glass eye. I think he got £30,000 in compensation and obviously having the injury from that young meant it didn't really bother him, still I don't think it's worth it for blindness in one eye.
I have a damaged right eye, because I had a sharp stone in my eye at a street fight. Not needed a eye-path or something, but it is bad.
