Chalazion

I mentioned a few weeks ago about how I've been having some problems with my eye. I thought it was a stye, but it turns out it wasn't. Those drops the pharmacist gave me relieved the eye a bit, but not much. And the little red bump inside my eye wasn't going away. Well, last week, after several days of it feeling pretty much fine, I (foolishly) decided to try some eye make-up. I blinked, some of the mascara went into my eye, and oh man alive I thought I was going to DIE it hurt so bad. (The Artist was at my apartment and came rushing to my aid to find me some eye drops to flush out my eye. Thank goodness.) My eye was sore after that, like I'd been sucker-punched, and I decided it was time to find an eye doctor.

I would like to use this time to talk about "being fluent." Americans who've never had to live in a foreign language will ask if I'm "fluent in French." Americans in France never ask that question. They know better. To me, "fluent," means you were born and raised here and are thus bi-lingual. You speak French as good as you speak English. Like a native. Or you've lived here for 25 years, and while you have an accent that is quite charming, you use all the idioms, laugh at all the jokes, know the "other" meaning of words that isn't listed in the dictionary, and well...except for the accent, you speak French as good as you speak English. That is fluent.

I wasn't born and raised here.

I'm not married to a Frenchman.

I haven't lived here for 25 years.

And thus, no. I am not "fluent." Do I speak French? Yes. Am I comfortable speaking French? Usually, yes. ***When I'm in my comfort zone.

My comfort zone is using the top 50 verbs that people in every day life (to go, to come, to be, to have, to do, to eat, to sleep, to read, to eat, to say, etc.) My comfort zone is talking about work things. My comfort zone is probably an 8th grade level of speaking, but fully capable of living life.

My comfort zone is not...

...describing to the plumber what's wrong with my sink. I don't know any of those words.

...asking the electric company over the phone to explain again how the monthly bill works.

...anything medical.

So going to an eye doctor? Ack. Did I learn the words for "eyelid," "eyelash," "socket," "pain," "to itch," "to burn," and "tears" once upon a time in language school? Sure. Have I used them since then? No.

I wandered around all day Monday until I finally found an eye doctor that could see me right away. (I went into approximately five offices. Only one could make me an appointment...for two weeks away. Thanks, but I might be blind by then.) The eye glass store kindly recommended an eye doctor down the street, and they made me an appointment for the next day.

When he called me into his office, I immediately used my newest tactic for getting people to have mercy on my language abilities.

"Bonjour. I'm a foreigner, and thus, French isn't my mother tongue. And well, I've never seen an eye doctor in French." He smiled kindly at me, and promised we'd work it out. I sat down in the examination chair and he asked, "You're here for your 'côntrole'?" (Note to self: 'côntrole' must be the word for yearly eye check-up.)

"No," I explain. "I have a problem with my eye." I explain about how I've had a headache behind the eye, a something that is not a stye, and that sometimes the eye makes me want to scratch it (cause I couldn't remember the word for "itch"), sometimes it burns, sometimes the sunlight bothers me, etc., and that all around it feels like I've been sucker-punched. (Although I didn't say "sucker-punched," because I don't know the word for "sucker." I just said "like someone hit me," and he finished my sentence with the word "coup de poing," which is the word for "punch".)

He removed my glasses and had me read the chart on the wall. I had a small panic of "what if the letter G or J is up there (because I don't know how to pronounce either one correctly and he might mistake that for I-can't-see-the-letters)," but was quite pleased with myself to be able to remember to say "zed" instead of "Z," and "ahch" instead of "H," and I passed. My glasses are still the correct prescription (which is called "ordonnance," for anyone who's interested). Thank goodness for that.

He pulled on my eyelids in all sorts of directions, told me look left, right, up, down, etc. He put all sorts of drops in my eyes. He shined lights in them. He dilated them (which I wasn't expecting)...and all the while I understood everything he said! I can handle the eye doctor in French!

The one word he said that I didn't know was what's wrong with my eye. I have a chalazion, which, it turns out, is the same word in English. He pulled out a big, English medical dictionary for me to read the description of it. But because he'd dilated my eyes, I couldn't focus on the words, so he told me to put my nose right to the book and I should be able to read it. That made me laugh. Basically it's a cyst-like infection. (And if you google photos of a chalazion, they're really gross. Pantene, I know you'll do it. Ha. Mine doesn't look like those photos, it really is a small little un-noticeable-from-the-outside bump.)

He wrote me a prescription, and then said that if it's not better in a week, he'll have to scrape it off. WHAT?! Did I hear that correctly?! Unfortunately, I did. "Scrape" and "eye" should never, ever be used in the same sentence. Ever.

I stumbled my dilated self to the pharmacy, where I was blinded by their bright lights, and got my meds. All three of them. The left eye drops are actually for my normal eye, cause it feels weird and unbalanced to put so much in my sick eye and the other one be all dry...so I put normal eye drops in just to equal things out. I have two different drops I put in four times a day in the sick eye. The orange tablet is a creme that is a bit like the consistency of vaseline, and oh man, it's weird to put in my eye. I do it right before I go to bed, and the ointment covers my eyeball so that I can't see, and when I wake up...it's all gone. So weird.
So while I still wouldn't say that I'm fluent in French, the trip to the eye doctor did boost my confidence level that maybe my comfort zone isn't as small as I thought it was. And my favorite word I learned at the eye doctor? The "socket" is called a "cul-de-sac."