"K" wrote in reply to Bob Hobden
A week and a half ago I walked into our small greenhouse, turned around,
and
straight into our tall Oleander, a leaf of which went up inside my glasses
and stabbed me in the eye.
To cut a very long story short after two days it got bad such that it was
very light sensitive and painful and the "Walk in Centre" (not local!) I
went to said I had scratched the cornea. Turns out their treatment was
incorrect because of the depth of the cut and I now have had to see a
local
eye surgeon three times this week because it has ulcerated. Three lots of
eye drops to take. Only now am I able to look at a PC screen or any light
although my vision is still blurred in the right eye. Still can't drive.

My Surgeon says if you get something like that in your eye go to Hospital
ASAP for a checkup (and try to see an eye surgeon) don't wait for it to
get
worse, with eyes it's better safe that sorry!

Bob, very sorry to hear that. By coincidence, my husband did the same last
weekend. Though not as bad as yours, it's still a severe infection, and
we've had 4 hospital visits since last Monday. I reiterate your advice,
don't 'wait and see', get straight to the hospital. Between appointments,
his eye seemed to be getting worse, so he went back straight away, and it
was most certainly the right thing to do, as they immediately upped him to
hourly doses of a stronger antibiotic.

Thanks Kay, hope your husband is on the mend too, he has my sympathy and
unfortunately I do understand exactly what he's going through.
I feel like my eye is improving now, I can drive again and the light
sensitivity has almost gone, but the Eye Surgeon said yesterday "a very
slight improvement but it's still touch and go" which is comforting ,not!
Hope there is better news during tomorrow's visit.

--
Regards
Bob H
17mls W. of London.UK

Bob Hobden writes

Thanks Kay, hope your husband is on the mend too, he has my sympathy
and unfortunately I do understand exactly what he's going through. I
feel like my eye is improving now, I can drive again and the light
sensitivity has almost gone, but the Eye Surgeon said yesterday "a very
slight improvement but it's still touch and go" which is comforting
,not! Hope there is better news during tomorrow's visit.

Thanks - he's well on the mend and was discharged Monday :-)
Hope your news is as good.
--
Kay

"Bob Hobden" typed


Thanks Kay, hope your husband is on the mend too, he has my sympathy and
unfortunately I do understand exactly what he's going through.
I feel like my eye is improving now, I can drive again and the light
sensitivity has almost gone, but the Eye Surgeon said yesterday "a very
slight improvement but it's still touch and go" which is comforting ,not!
Hope there is better news during tomorrow's visit.

I'm glad you (and Kay's 'E') appear to be on the mend now and wish you
all a Happy Christmas.

Having worked in what became a 'Walk-In Centre', I can't say I'm
surprised by the turn of events. I've retired now, so needn't worry too
much about what I post...

I worked at Edgware Walk-In Centre and am a doctor with around 20 years'
Accident & Emergency experience behind me.

Edgware had an Accident & Emergency Department until 1997 (I think).
This became an 'Urgent Treatment Centre' when the hospital was changed
from being a General Hospital to a Community Hospital. I worked there
from 1999-2003.

The Urgent Treatment Centre was staffed by A&E doctors and Emergency
Care Nurse Practitioners for several years. During that time it became
increasingly difficult for us to refer patients to Ophthalmic Surgeons
(or ENT Clinics, or some Fracture Clinics).
Referral would entail long and frustrating run-arounds through hospital
switchboards and bureaucracy, but at least those of us making the
referral usually knew what we were doing and could stick our heels in
until we had the desired result.

The Centre was rebranded as a 'Walk-In Centre' in 2001 I think.

The bean counters then found that many patients attending our Centre had
'Primary Care' problems and replaced A&E doctors with GPs and Primary
Care Nurses, who were less experienced in matters like these.

It is much easier and quicker to send someone home with a tube of eye
ointment (if you're lucky) and no follow-up than to spend ages doing a
referral. If someone has taken the path of least resistance, I'm not
surprised; I'm also not surprised to here tales like these :-(

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

Had the same sort of accident with a houseplant.

Hope you feel better now ! Steve


http://www.link2garden.com/