First time out ...
I woke up this morning and the first thing I said to my housemate was 'dad wants to take me to nans today but I'm too scared to leave the house'. We had a bit of a conversation and I rationalised that leaving the house was a good thing and that it will be fine.
I put some skinny jeans on, brushed my hair, took a deep breath and told myself everything was going to be ok. I can leave the house and all will be fine, my eye will be safe, nothing will touch my eye and damage the cornea graft, dad will be right by my side and he can guide me through the shops so that I can get something from the chemist. I even psyched myself up with a treat - I could get Zambreros, my favourite instant takeaway.
It'll be good for me dad says .....
So we get to the local shop, I have some glasses on to protect my eye. I decided to not wear the eye protecting patch, after all, the nurses said that I should allow my eye to see and not cover it all the time. The anxiety is so strong, but I fight it, I'm with dad, I'm safe, I'll walk behind dad and I'll be ok.
We go into the chemist and I'm feeling pretty confident so when we leave I decided to walk next to dad. Rookie mistake .... I had dad on my good side, not my blind side ... After about 5 metres I walked into the leaves of palm tree! It scared the crap out of me, where did that come from? And holy crap! The leaves have just run across my face, under my glasses and touched my grafted eye. Oh my god, breathe, breathe....
Good old dad just said 'don't worry mate, I didn't see it either'. Lol, I have to laugh now. But not at the time.
We went to Zambreros, I got my favourite buritto and then we got in the car and started driving. I tried to just enjoy the buritto but I could still feel where the leaves had touched and my eye was burning .... what if they were germy? Oh my god! What if the germs get into my graft and I get an infection. I freaked out, poor dad didn't know how to handle it and I cried and just wanted to go home. Normally one might wash their eye if they thought something was wrong, but I still wasn't allowed to get my eye wet, so what was I going to do? This is so hard.
Dad drove me home and I didn't try and leave the house until my specialist appointment later that week. I feel like a prisoner in my own life.
I am at peace with what is.
Miss Nat xoxo
Image: Sketch of "behind bars"by LarocArt