First ER trip at 3am

Don’t worry, nothing serious happened but I had to go to the ER.

I woke up at 1:30am or so feeling something in my eyes that hurt when blinking. I was sleepy and thought I was imagining it. I checked on the mirror and didn’t see nothing (foreign object) but a bit red. I tried to go back to sleep, maybe for 40 min or so and woke up again confirming that it’s not imagination. Definitely something is happening to my eyes. Given that I have ICL, my first reaction that it was dislocated. Then I got up and wondering where should I go as I don’t know ER would have eye doctor.

I called the front desk who gave me the name of the nearest private hospital that has ER. I went there with Uber thinking the worst (what if something serious happened to me, what tasks I won’t be able to do but can’t delegate, etc.) I told myself, calm down, let’s do one step at the time, first diagnosis, then action plan.

Once I got to the ER, I waited for 15 min to get to the triage area. The lady is super nice and told me that they don’t have eye doctor, and told me where to go instead, an emergency room for eyes. WOOO! I was surprised that it exists. 15 min later I arrived. The place was open but nobody was inside. The security guard asked me to wait and that someone will come.

Indeed, 10 min later a young man came, sleepy, took my information, made me pay for the consultation. few minutes later, another young man, looking like a doctor, asked me to go to the room, which is a ophthalmologist room. He examined me, calmly told me (in Portuguese) that I have superficial scratch on my cornea, and that it will heal in 2 days. I said I am in pain, is there a drop that will numb it? He said no, but offered to put a contact lens. I said WHAT? Yes, contact lens. The idea is to avoid my eyelid to touch it while it heals. I was skeptical but willing to try anything. He put on and MAGIC! the pain reduced by 50% or more. He gave me antibiotic prescription and I was dismissed.

I got back to the hotel at 4am, went back to sleep with peace of mind and immense gratitude of nothing serious has happened. I am so glad for having access to good health care, experienced doctors, the feeling of secure going around the empty city at 3am, and that people are receptive to my spanish/english mix.

WOOO… what a way to start the day. My biggest scare moving to a new place is this kind of scare, in the middle of the night, needing medical care. Fortunately it was a good experience.