I woke this morning with the pain in my eye again, it was the first thing I noticed, even before trying to turn the alarm clock off. I have wondered for a long time now what is the point of this painful, virtually blind orb set in the left side of my face actually is.

As is the story with most of my body it isn’t content to have just the problems of MS, it had to go out and find something else to accessorize it with. They call the MS symptom Optical Neuritis, it causes blind spots and blurred vision and of course the MS favorite, pain, sometimes it is constant at others like today, when I move my eyeball. Joining the party is Macular Degeneration, it also causes blind spot and even more blurring of my vision. I don’t know how they separated out the two different conditions, but I’m not an optician and I can’t look inside my eye.

The really annoying thing about both of them is that my left eye was the one that I had the best vision in before and where it isn’t blind it still is the stronger one. The best way to describe it is like looking through thick lace, where the threads are I see nothing, the hole are small and crystal clear. I am short sighted so glasses are needed for watching TV and as happens with age I have other ones for reading. The only thing I don’t need either for is sitting here at the computer. I have the screen set at the perfect distance from me and of course I can control the size of everything on it. That is why I am annoyed at my left eye today. Have you ever tried to type and read without moving your eye? Try it, fix your eyes and move your head instead, it rapidly get annoying and you forget until the pain reminds you.

I am really glad that although I have a web cam it isn’t beaming pictures out all the time, earlier this morning I was sporting a rather snazzy piece of kitchen towel taped across my eye. I can’t remember when I discovered this or actually how, but by soaking some kitchen towel in cold water and strapping it over my eye for a couple of hours seems to sooth it. I can only think that it is the cooling of the nerve makes the difference and as soothing as it is I still felt totally silly.