i am not a pirate

my mom once coined the phrase "one of my sports injuries" which is an ironic term referring to an injury that you sustain doing an activity that is the least athletic or least active thing possible . here are some examples of "sports injuries": getting a repetitive stress injury in your thumb from playing piano, hurting your knee from walking on sand, straining your neck from talking on the phone without having a job that warrants excessive phone use. so now, here i am, home laid up with the sport injury to end all sports injuries. here's how it happened:
the nubian god was waiting for me to come to bed so we could get some shut-eye (the nubian god is back!) and i was in the bathroom doing my evening bathroom routine. and as i am taking out my left contact i feel that it is completely stuck to my eye. what do i do? i tug on it really hard and yank it off, not realizing i am also taking off a layer of my cornea. then i return to the nubian god and tell him something to the effect of "ow, my eye hurts" and with one looks he tells me i have scratched my cornea.
so when i went to the doctor, i felt a little stupid. who scratches their own eyeball? but you have no idea how much this hurt. it hurt SO bad. i could barely keep my eyes open. so painful.
when i told the doctor the story he seemed a bit suspicious. but then once he put that yellow dye in there (which felt AWESOME! it was the only time ever that someone enjoyed that yellow dye. i even asked if i could take some home with me. the doctor promptly said no) anyway he takes one look at me and is in shock and says "my god! you have really damaged your eye!"
i felt really good about this because then i knew i wasn't just being a baby.
"yeah," i said, "it really hurts."
"i'm surprised you weren't screaming when you did this!"
"i'm pretty tough."
"you must be."
i am.
now this whole time i am fearing two things:
1. i will have to wear only glasses for an obscenely long period of time. like 5 weeks of only glasses.
2. he will make me wear an eyepatch. and although i saw a very handsome pirate the other day in the supermarket (absolutely true story. hey, its brooklyn) i do NOT want to wear an eyepatch.
so he begins to lay his diagnosis down ... he says my cornea is seriously scratched and it is at risk of infection. he mentions pus and i get all grossed out. i must take prescription antiobiotic eye drops.
check. will do. no problem.
then, and he warns me that this will sound strange ...
(please don't say eye patch, please don't say eye patch)
he tells me that i must wear ONLY contact lenses.
what?!
but wait, there's more! i can only wear contact lenses, AND i must wear my left lens on my injured eye like a bandaid for 5 days straight. no taking it out. my cornea cells will regrow and be shielded by the contact lens. (that's right. i lost so much cornea that my cornea cells need to regrow)
this is a contact lens lover's dream! never before has a doctor said to me, "whatever you do don't take out your contact lenses." this is awesome.
i was also instructed to use lots and lots of refresh eyedrops. he is also concerned about the dryness of my right eye but we will deal with that later.
anyway, so now i am home with my contact lenses back in and giving myself eyedrops on the hour. i feel better but it still hurts. but at least i do not look like a pirate.

now i would like to recap my illnesses of the last month or so:
veteran's day weekend: awful cold that left me on couch for several days
first week of december: bahaman flu that ended with me in the ER
last week of december: sore throat
last days of december: decimated cornea

only me.