A girl walked into a bar. The girl was me. The bar was Flip Flops and this story is nothing near a joke.

September of 2013 I went to Atlanta with some friends for a Braves game and a night out. It was maybe 11 pm. I paid my cover, walked in and was in the middle of saying hello to some friends when some random girl stumbles out of no where, at least fifty sheets to the wind, and knocks an ash tray off a table. It hits the floor, shatters, and ricocheted up and in my direction. There was something in my eye. And it didn’t feel great.

Downtown Atlanta on a Saturday night is not the best place to find an eye washing station. The staff laughed when I asked if they had one. And I do not recommend hogging the one small sink and mirror in the ladies’ room. As hoards of girls tried to butt me out-of-the-way to powder their noses and reapply eye liner, one pointed out that I had ‘shhheeeoooootttt‘ all over my leg. (Think SNL Californians when you pronounce that.) Nope… Not shhheeeoooootttt… That would be dried blood from dirty shattered ash tray. Don’t try me right now.

Once I felt like I had removed whatever was there, and made note of the blood pocket on my inner right eye, I headed back out to sit with my friends, hoping that was the end of it. Throughout the night I washed it out with eye drops and napkins… and I planned to call my eye doctor the next day.

I went to my eye doctor, who sent me to an ophthalmologist. I was prescribed an antibiotic ointment and Muro drops, since there seemed to be liquid under a layer of my cornea.

Over the next couple of years every so often, I’d wake up and open my eyes to excruciating pain. You know when you get a paper cut and that one piece of skin just won’t quite heal down properly? That was my eye. Doc said that when I awoke and opened my eye it would re-rip the wound. Another round of drops and ointments. It might heal itself. It will hopefully heal itself soon. Eyes are tricky. Two years later and here we are. Still dealing with this.

Halloween weekend was the worst it’s ever felt. Three days of pain, sensitivity to light, and tears-both involuntary and emotional. Seeing that I was out-of-town, I couldn’t run over to my ophthalmologist but did become familiar with their emergency line. I was put on Motrin and ice packs until I could get into their office as soon as I got home.

I finally got an appointment with a cornea specialist and now have a more solid answer. I have wrinkly eyeballs. Yup. You read that right. Those were his exact words. The outer layer of my eyes are a wrinkly texture which makes the injury that much harder to heal. It’s not an unusual condition… apparently, some people are just born with wrinkly eyeballs. It’s most often inherited (thanks, mom) but doesn’t affect anything until some freak accident like ricocheted ashtray happens. So is my life.

Anterior Stromal Punctures and Keratectomy (DO NOT GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH THOSE TERMS) were tossed about, but for now I’ve just been given more drops, this time with antibiotics and steroids, to try to speed the healing process. The doctor doesn’t want to go in and do anything unless it happens again and I’m in pain. Because- you know- the procedure hurts like crazy and I’ll be out a few days. And he only wants to hurt me if I’m already hurting. So thoughtful of him.

UPDATE 12/10/15: After weeks of drops my eye ripped again. So two days ago we went back in and the doctor did a debridement/roughening of Bowman’s membrane. (Got that from my file.) So, yeah. He scraped the bad tissue off of my eye, then placed a contact over the cornea as a band-aid. I’ve been given three types of drops to use four times a day and I go back in a few days.

I’ve been told a few times I need to open an eye-patch etsy store. But luckily I think I’m done with glittery DIY patches. And thanks to good doctors and prayers my eye is finally on the mend.

UPDATE: 2/28/17: Nope. Just kidding. This is a recurring thing. I now have allergy drops to make sure my eyes don’t roughen anything up and I’m still on my Muro drops and ointment daily. Every now and then if it acts up they put me on antibiotic drops to calm it down in hopes that it mends itself so no more scraping needs to be done. All because I walked into a bar four years ago.

I feel Matthew 7:3 on a whole new level now. “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”