A couple of days ago when I got home from campus, I noticed my eyes were a tad red. I thought maybe I had been out for a whole day, and spent quite some time in the air-conditioned room, which explained the redness in both my eyes. I thought it was normal and that it would be OK the following day.

But the next morning, after popping my contacts in I felt this burning sensation on my left eye and before I knew it, my left eye was tearing, badly. I removed the other lens and soaked them in the disinfectant before attempting for the second time.

The same thing happened when I tried popping in my left lens. I had no choice but to wear my glasses, which I knew would cause a certain degree of inconvenience to me. Otherwise, I should not be bothered wearing contacts, right?!

As fate would have it, I decided to go for an eye check-up, partly to get a new pair of glasses, and partly to get another three months’ supply of contact lens.

The optometrist was a very brilliant man. Less than a minute in the dark room where I was required to look into the mirror that reflected the alphabets of different sizes, he asked if my eyes were painful. I related to him the contact lens episode and he suggested that I see an eye specialist immediately.

I asked him what was wrong. He said my left eye was swelling and it could due to the fact that I wear my contacts for long hours and that I sometimes slept with them popped in. I don’t know, the last time I religiously wore my contacts for the recommended 8 hours was back in Form 6.

But now, I leave my house for the campus at about 8 am everyday, and I sometimes get home at about 10 pm. I sometimes have so much work to do I just cannot help it *sigh*

The clinic that the optometrist recommended was not vey far away so I went there immediately. The eye specialist’s assistant asked me to read another series of jumbled-up alphabets in different sizes and then dripped 2 drops of amber-coloured solution into both my eyes. And he proceeded to shine the UV light into my eyes.

I wanted to ask the eye specialist whether I would be blind but he did not look like somebody who would tolerate a scaredy-25-year-old-cat.

Apparently, there was a lot of bacteria in both my eyes and I was disallowed to wear my contacts for at least 6 weeks. Six-freaking-weeks!

So I was given a 5 mL bottle of eye drops which I MUST drip into both my eyes every two-freaking-hours!! Dripping anything into my eyes is BAD enough, and now I have to do it every two hours?! *wipes tears* I remember when I was younger, a LOT younger, I always squeal whenever I had to have anything dripped into my eyes or ears.

And the whole visit to the eye specialist, which took less than 15 minutes, made me RM65 poorer!! *sob*

Note: Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys, do NOT sleep with your contacts and AVOID wearing them for extended hours.. Take it from somebody who thought things like this would never happen to herself..