I got home from work. Usually I live at a frantic pace, but that day I had lazy plans: eat dinner, write this blog post, and paint my nails for a post-Valentine's Day dance the next day. Nothing too busy. I even made an impulse decision to stop by a boutique on my way home from work to see if they had a belt to wear with my dress. (I hardly ever make impulse decisions because who has time to be impulsive? Not me.) After finishing up dinner, I went to the bathroom to touch up my makeup, and that's when my laidback night became a disaster.
My right eyelid was swollen and filled with fluid!
If I knew how to faint, I might have fainted. But I stayed upright and conscious, and so I did the next best thing to do when distraught, which is contact my mother the RN.
My mother the RN was at work, where she was busy being an RN. She took time out of her busy RN life to call me and be a mother. (Little-known fact: Mothers and RNs are essentially the same thing. The only real difference is that one of them gets paid for their trouble.) Mom said that I was probably having an allergic reaction. To test this theory, she asked me if my face itched. It did, a little. Allergic reaction it was.
Here's what my RN/mother told me to do:
1. Take out my contacts
2. Take Benedryl
3. Have Baby Brother find the eye drops for me so that I could put said eye drops in my eye.
4. Put ice on my eyelid.
I intended to do all of those things, but since I had no Benedryl of my own, I called my dad after taking out my contacts. I asked him to come pick me up, let me partake of the family Benedryl and use the family eye drops, let me paint my nails in his home, and then drive me back after all was said and done and all nails were painted and dry (in case I was drowsy).
My dad said yes because he lets me be needy sometimes, and that's what I love about him.
Baby Brother and Dad were at the library when I called, so I had to wait ten to fifteen minutes for them to pick me up. While I waited, I paid attention to my breathing to be sure that my throat wasn't swelling up. I also kept looking at my eyelid. When it was opened, it merely looked puffy. But when I shut it, the fluid ballooned out like a frog's belly.
Do you want to see my eyelid? Do you?
If you want to see my eyelid, scroll down!
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...if you don't want to see it, turn back now!
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When Dad and Baby Brother picked me up, it was much worse. When we got back to my parents' place, I showed my dad my eyelid. Then I showed Baby Brother my eyelid. A little while later, I showed Little Sister my eyelid.
Each of their immediate reaction was to make a verbal explanation of disgust. Then, quickly, "Sorry, it's not that bad..."
"It's horrifying," I responded each time, almost gleefully.
We found the Benedryl. Baby Brother got out the eye drops. News flash: it's hard to administer eye drops to your own eye. So Baby Brother made me lie down while he dropped them in for me! Being babied by a child you regard as your baby is a strange thing. Then I put an ice pack in a pillowcase and clapped it to my eye.
Throughout these ministrations, we tried to determine what I was allergic to.
I hadn't done anything differently that day. Well, I had gone to that boutique, and the boutique owners do keep a little dog there, but I'd never had a reaction like this to their dog before! I had also eaten a new recipe for dinner, but the new recipe didn't have anything unusual. Though I had eaten it from a piece of Tupperware a friend had given me. Is it possible to be allergic to Tupperware?!
Dad asked, "Could you have had an allergic reaction to your makeup?"
I told him that I'd worn the same makeup I always wear.
"Yeah, Dad," Baby Brother, ever my defender, said. "Basically today she did the same thing she always did!"
In the end, the swelling went down by bedtime. It never returned. We never found out what caused it. But I was able to paint my nails all the same, so we all lived happily ever after.
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