The Last Bug of Summer

The Last Bug of Summer

Last Saturday was a great day to ride. It was almost as if Winter was never going to get here. I sure wasn't in a hurry for it to arrive. Every weekend I keep telling myself, "well, this will probably be the last week end to ride before the holidays".

I "had" to give my daughter a ride from Winchester to Manassas to pick up some pictures (Redskins of all things!), and then bring her back to Winchester. It's not that she couldn't just drive her car down and back, but she wanted her "fix" on the bike. (If you really enjoy riding, you know what I mean). That killed about 3 hours.

Then as luck would have it, my wife needed to run to Berkley Springs for a gift. She also suggested we take the bike. It took me about 10 seconds to make up my mind. That killed about another 4 hours because we did not just go straight there and back - we also ran Route 9 along the Ridge of the mountains and ended up coming through Martinsburg, West Virginia.

Now for the meat of the story:

When we got back to town it was almost dark, or at least dark enough that when I stopped to pick up a video for that evening, I had to leave the sunglasses off. I figured it wasn't a big deal, since we were only about 10 minutes from home and I do have a windshield on the Valkyrie. I normally carry a pair of clear safety glasses, but got lazy and didn't want to look for them in the bottom of the saddle bag.

Talk about stupid!

About 3 blocks from home, something landed in my left eye. It wasn't anything as big as a car or anything like that. It was just a small piece of "something". Might have even been the last bug of the summer, but it was there nevertheless. It wasn't really painful, just annoying. What made it worse is that my wife, who was riding on the back, reminded me about the glasses before we left the video store. So you know there was no way that I was going to let her know I had something in my eye. I just (stupidly) continued to drive home, squinting and tearing like a man.

The next morning, my eye was red, and water (cause guys don't have tears) was flowing out of it. I went to work, and had a hard time with the sunlight, and worse of all, even with room lights. So I started wearing my sunglasses indoors. Personally, I thought I looked like Jack Nicholson.

The pain continued.

The next day was even worse, and my wife, who is a teacher, said I looked like I had conjunctivitis. I remember hearing in the old days that if you arrived at Ellis island with Conjunctivitis, they wouldn't let you into the country. I had no idea what this disease was, but figured if our forefathers knew it was bad, it must have been bad.

Keep in mind, I never made the association with Pink Eye, simply because I'm a guy and would never have anything pink! My eye hurt terribly when I blinked. When I got around bright lights, my eye socket even hurt. I knew I was dying from Terminal Conjunctivitis.

So I did what any guy would do, I called the Doctor. He wasn't available, but the nurse (almost a Doctor) was. Of course, when I told her my wife thought it was Conjunctivitis, she treated me for it and wrote a prescription for antibiotics. (Apparently they've come up with these revolutionary new antibiotics that can defeat Terminal Conjunctivitis). When I casually mentioned that I was glad it wasn't an aftereffect from my Lasik Surgery, the nurse tore up the prescription for the antibiotic and started calling Opthamologists, trying to find one that could see me in a hurry.

The pain still continued.

About 2 hours later, the Opthamologist told me I had an abrasion of my cornea. I was given 3 prescriptions: one to keep the eye dilated, one as an antibiotic to apply every 2 hours, and some "stuff" for the pain.

As of today, I've been medicating myself for 3 days, haven't been able to ride my bike, and it's Friday, so there goes the weekend. All because I didn't put on a pair of glasses when I rode.

And the pain continues!

Webmaster's Note: Michael reports that he is recovered, and in the future plans to wear a full face helmet.

Thanks for visiting VirginiaWind.