The stye's the limit.

There was a tiny red dot at the center of my bottom left eye-lid yesterday. By bedtime last night, that tiny red dot grew into a larger red dot. Oh goodie. A stye. Haven't had one of those in so long I couldn't remember what to do for it. So I just left it alone.

The stye, however, had a mind of its own. It made its presense known, whether my eyes were open wide or shut tight. That little red dot became larger, and white, and nasty-looking. When I opened my eyes, it looked like I was holding a spoon up in front of my eye. When my eyes were closed, I could feel that angry white dot pressing up against my eye. Wonderful.

Of course, I couldn't sleep... open the eyes, close the eyes.... it didn't matter. My stye-filled eye was itching, and I was trying just to leave it alone. Kept trying to fall asleep... tried to think of everything under the sun except the stye under my eye-lid. And of course, when you try to think of everything else, then everything else is going round and round in your mind and then you really can't sleep. My husband was snoring, Gracie was snoring.... I was wide awake.

I swear I saw every hour change on the bedside clock all through the night. Around three o'clock in the morning I started to get hungry. I didn't get out of bed, though. If the cats had seen me in the kitchen at that hour, they would have all been ready for breakfast. So I just stayed right where I was. I thought of going into the TV room to read, but with the stye on my eye, I didn't think that would be too successful.

I must have fallen asleep sometime after 5:00.... because I do remember seeing 5:03 on the clock, but I don't remember any numbers after that. When I woke up after seven, my face was so deep into my pillow that it's a wonder I hadn't turned blue. My husband asked me how my eye was and I showed it to him before I looked at it myself in the mirror. I don't even know how to spell the sound that came out of him, but it would translate into something like "Good lord, get away from me with that thing because it's probably contagious."

I called my cousin L up in NY to ask her what to do.... she was a nurse for years and years and she still keeps a shelf filled with current medical textbooks. She told me to boil water and let it cool, then take plump cotton balls and bathe the stye with the water, as hot as I could stand it. "Don't touch your eye with your fingers. Don't burn your eye. Keep washing your hands. Don't put on your eye make-up." That last one made me flinch. I've been boiling hot water all day long.... the stye is still there.

No eye make-up this morning. Which means I haven't left the house all day, except to let Gracie into the backyard. My husband wanted to go out to dinner tonight. What?! I can't go out like this! He told me he had forgotten about the stye. I told him the stye wasn't the problem-- the lack of eye make-up was the issue.

As I type, my husband is on his way to the Chinese restaurant... he's bringing dinner back home. I wonder if hot Egg Drop Soup would work better on this stye than plain old hot water?