Forced Day Off

I’ve been living and working here in the Kingdom of Sands for almost a decade and believe it or not, I was never given a forced day off except last week! The Ophthalmologist that I consulted at the Assalama Hospital in Al Khobar diagnosed me with sore eyes and gave me a three day forced day off. The eye doctor said that I should not report to the office since it’s contagious. Although I have a lot of things to do in the office, I had no other choice but to take a rest. My boss also told me that he’d rather not see me in the office or he’ll drag me to my flat. He said that there’s currently a sore eyes epidemic in Lebanon and he knows how nasty sore eyes could be.


I know, I know, you don’t have to remind me. I’m just telling myself that it’s bad to self diagnose using the e-doctors on the web. You see, I wasn’t really convinced of the Ophthalmologist’s diagnoses of my red eyes. I still wouldn’t and couldn’t accept that what I had was a sore eyes and contagious. From what I read, it’s just Iritis and that caused the redness. Per experience kasi, kung sore eyes nagmumuta at nagluluha ang mga mata and it never happened to me. Pero as Kuya Joseph had said, wag daw ako mag doctor doctoran.

So with a 3 day forced day off last week (from 27-29 September 2010) plus the two day (30 Sep. and 1 Oct) weekend, I practically stayed 5 days at home. Nakakabagot staying at home whole day. Although the doctor said that what I had was contagious it didn’t deter me to go to public places. I couldn’t really stay home for the whole day. I had to eat din so kailangan kong bumili ng pagkain. Another thing that concerns me most is that if I don’t go out, I won’t be able to turn my AC off. Although bago pa naman ito, baka masira at ma forced pa akong bumili ng bago at masira din ang aking budget. In this part of the world, you wouldn’t be surprised if you see people using dark shades so I just used mine. So walang makakakita sa matang namumula.

When I was growing up in Iloilo, I remember that my Aunt’s cures to the sore eyes are breast milk and urine. Gross isn’t it? Imagine yourself receiving drops of milk from a woman’s breast? Kung bata ka pa okay lang walang malisya pero kung malaki ka na masagwa na. Kaya mo rin kayang ilagay ang ihi mo sa iyong mga mata? It turned out that using breast milk and urine on the eye are common Filipino myths. We all know too well that those mythical cures could lead to bacterial infections of worst.

My ophthalmologist says that there is no cure for sore eyes as it is self limiting and would normally last for 7-10 days. He gave me two kinds of eye drops and it helps I guess since I was cleared of sore eyes by Thursday (30 Sep.).