Return of the movies in a nutshell (unlike this title)!

Long term followers may recall a section I wrote on my old website, yes it's the return of the movies in a nutshell!

This week:

BATMAN
Wealthy man assaults the mentally ill. THE END

Pulp Fiction
John Travolta and Samual L Jackson make small talk and shoot people in interesting ways but in the wrong order. THE END

Star Wars: Episode III
Anakin becomes Darth Vader - To nobodies surprise. THE END

My face Space Twit book update

A little while ago I told you all how I had signed up to Twitter, well as suspected a month or two has gone by and I haven't updated my status at all. I have come to the conclusion that I don't want people to know what I am doing or thinking every second of the day, but more to the point I simply cant be arsed.

So if you really want to know what is going on in my life, then you can read the very occasional post I put here or better still give me a call. I wouldn't bother writing me an email or a letter as they are likely to be put to one side as well. Don't get me wrong I always have every intention of writing back, but the simple fact is: I am lazy. I have trouble motivating myself to do anything, so much so in fact that I thought I ought to test for diabetes the other day as I was literally struggling to find the energy to put one foot in front of the other.

It turns out I'm just lazy though.

Chronic Case of the Mondays

Except that it's Tuesday and whats more I know I will feel the same tomorrow and probably Thursday too.

Yup it's the day after the 2nd May bank holiday weekend and while we all love to have a long weekend, ultimately it reminds us that being at home is infinitely better than being at work. Even when you spend a good portion of that weekend getting to know the inside of several hospital waiting rooms. This probably needs a fade out to about a month ago...

Wibbly lines ensue.....

It's about a month ago and I am in the spare room playing a bit of Call of Duty 4 online while Nikala is very kindly cooking us both some dinner in the kitchen. I'm close to being promoted to sergeant and I've got one of the pesky Russian's in my sights, oh he's a dead man he just doesn't know it yet. Except that as usual I have been killed again and I'm getting nowhere. I'm sure I remember a time I was good at these games; I decide they must be cheating and by "they" I mean everyone else. It's the only logical explanation for my low scores.

Nikala bursts into the room, hand clapped over one eye. 'I've just gone and poked myself in the eye and it really hurts! How stupid is that?!'

'Oh hon, that's horrible' I say 'I've done it before and really stings, but it should be alright in a few minutes. Go and sit down and I'll finish din dins'

'I don't know how I even manged to do it' she says, 'I even had my glasses on!'

A couple of hours later and it hasn't subsided, in fact Nikala's eye has puffed up and she cant open it at all. The pain is constant and even moving her eye is agony. Water is streaming down her face and quite understandably she is a little bit panicky about permanent damage to her sight. Poor thing hasn't even been able to eat her dinner.

'Do you think I need to go to casualty?' Nikala asks.

'I know it really hurts but I don't think you need to go right now. Lets see how it is in the morning and if it is still really bad I'll take you in.' I reply. Yes I know you are thinking "what a heartless bastard!" and in retrospect I do feel very bad about not going straight away, but in my defence (and it's a flimsy one I know) Nikala has been known to panic and assume the worst every now and then.

So one restless and mostly sleepless night later, I have called in to work and let them know I am taking Nikala to hospital. A couple of hours later and the nurse is putting some horrible yellow dye in Nikala's eye and shining a blue light in her face. Calling me over she points out the problem.

'You see that area of bright green? That is the corneal abrasion that she has on her eye. It does look quite bad, more of a gouge than a scratch. You will need to make sure it is lubricated all the time. It should heal quite quickly but if it is still hurting in 24 - 48 hours then you should go to see a specialist eye unit at either Moorfields or St Mary's.'

This is an example of what I saw:

She gave us some antibiotic eye gel and some drops and off we went. Poor Nikala couldn't do anything as she still couldn't open her eyes. Even opening the uninjured eye caused her pain as it was impossible to move the eyeball independently and any movement of her injured eye caused her excruciating pain. I was working from home and guiding Nikala around the flat as best I could, I even read to her a little to try and alleviate the boredom, but it was pretty miserable and she was still quite scared about possible permanent damage to her sight.

Needless to say, the next morning Nikala was still in a huge amount of pain and still couldn't open her eyes so we made arrangements to go and see the specialist unit at St Mary's Hospital in Sidcup. Amazingly we didn't have to wait for long and within 10 minutes of our arrival Nikala was being examined by one of the ophthalmologists (see how I've learnt the correct terminology?). The first thing she said was:

'Oh you poor thing, you've given yourself quite a gouge there! Believe me it's more painful then childbirth and I can confirm that from firsthand experience.'

I always find it much more reassuring when I know the doctor examining me has undergone the same injury/operation/illness. Means they actually have some empathy rather than the usual abrupt cold matter of fact recital they normally give you.

The very next thing she told us was that Nikala had been putting the wrong medication in her eye and that it was no wonder it was still hurting. So that was nice, glad we went to the first hospital then. Anyway, after a little more motherly clucking and further reassurances that although it was very painful, it wouldn't be permanent and should heal quite quickly with the right medication (which she provided). It should start to feel a lot better in a day or two but might take up to a month or so for it to fully heal.

'Just keep putting in this lubricant until it runs out then you can just use something from over the counter for a month or two. Be particularly attentive when you go to bed and put more in even if you wake up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet or something'.

So Nikala did just that for the next month until the gel ran out, about a month later.

Wibbly lines....... back to present day (well a couple of days ago but you get the idea)....

So we are now almost exactly a month later and the antibiotic eye gel has run out. Never mind we say, we can just get some over the counter stuff from the chemist according to the specialist. So that's what we did and Nikala started using it on Wednesday last week.

On Wednesday night, no more than 1 hour after we went to bed, Nikala sits bolt upright in bed and wakes me up saying she was hurting. Now in my bleary eyed, sleep interrupted state, my brain couldn't quite compute what she was saying and so helpfully, my brain filled in the gaps. What I heard was "James, I have hurt my fingernail, I think I need to go to casualty." I couldn't understand why that would need a visit to casualty at 1:45am and so replied 'cant you just put a plaster on it, there are some in the kitchen', though I'm sure it probably didn't sound as clear as that. I then promptly rolled over and went straight back to sleep. Five minutes later Nikala woke me up again in a panic because she thought she was blind and I groggily came to and realised what was going on. Oh I should probably point out that I had taken a client at work out for drinks that evening so I was a little bit worse for ware, certainly couldn't drive. Another five minutes later and I had dressed myself and Nikala and called a minicab to take us over to the nearest casualty.

At 2:05am We crept out of the flat, careful not to disturb my sister who was staying with us for the night as she had an important interview the next morning and had flown back from her holiday in Italy especially for it. We bundled into the cab and off we trundled to the fabulous Lewisham Accident & Emergency unit...

... at 7:25am we saw a doctor.

In the intervening 5 hours and 20 minutes we saw a variety of individuals, several people in handcuffs, a few crazies burbling about aliens and government conspiracies and a couple of unintelligible Scottish drunks possibly looking for something or someone though that is a total guess as I am not versed in the Tennants Super tramp water language they were speaking.

So here we are again, more yellow dye in the eye, more blue light, the doctor saying it looks like a bad scratch and that we are probably right about it being a reaction to the new medication. He gave us some more of the old stuff and sent us on our way. We were shattered and both called in to work to tell them we wouldn't be in again before struggling home and crashing into a coma.

So the next day was Friday, a day Nikala and I had booked off for over a month, but Nikala's eye was still hurting. Not trusting the crappy Lewisham doctor we decided to return to the specialist unit in Sidcup where we learned that it had nothing to do with the new eye gel, other than it was maybe a bit to "sticky". Apparently the cornea is made up of several layers, and although over the last month the top layer had appeared to heal it hadn't attached itself to the layers beneath.

(look away now if your squeamish)

What had in fact happened was that Nikala's eye had dried out a little overnight and her eyelid had lightly stuck to her eye. Upon opening her eye the lid had dragged off the new layer of the cornea, a bit like picking a scab. And thus the excruciating pain, and a return to square one in the recovery process. So here we are, Nikala now has a host of ointments, gels and drops to put in her eye almost every hour of the day and we have been told that although it may appear to heal quickly this could re-occur at anytime anywhere up to 2 years from now. So that's a happy thought. Still, thankfully she hasn't lost her sight or been "permanently" injured. But she has had today off work whilst I still had to go in. I'm thinking of poking myself in the eye tonight, I may do it after I have wiped some chili on my fingers...