My Long Silence is Over

I apologize to my readers for the prolonged absence of new posts. I have been extremely busy this semester and have also had some serious issues with my right eye developing endophthalmitis. It resulted after a minor injury involving a two millimeter long shard of corningware becoming lodged in my right eye after an old pot I was boiling ramen noodles in exploded on my stove. Corningware, because of its partially recrystallized structure, tends to shatter with explosive force rather than merely break when it fails.

I had gotten somebody to drive me to the emergency room where the shard of corningware was removed from the right side of my right eye where it had narrowly missed my lens and cornea. However, a few days later my eye had become infected by bacteria that had probably been introduced into the interior of the eye when it had been punctured. I had been taking some perscribed tobramycin eyedrops as a preventative measure until my eye healed but the strain of bacteria that infected my eye was apparently resistant to it. I went to a clinic where I had to have an antibiotic called polymixin B injected directly into the interior of my eye and had to apply polymixin B eyedrops to the eye three times a day in addition to taking an antibiotic called Zyvox orally. Towards the beginning of the infection, I felt miserable and my eye looked very ghastly indeed. At one point the physician that I was speaking to at the clinic said that if the treatment with the polymixin B and the Zyvox was unsuccessful, I would seriously have to consider enucleation (eye removal) to control the infection.

Thankfully, the treatment worked and my vision in the eye has returned to normal with no apparent permanent loss of vision. I am fortunate that I did not suffer any permanent injury to the eye as I was not sure how I would handle having monocular vision. Everyday activities such as driving a car, reading, or even drawing and painting for my studio art classes became a major challenge as I did not have any depth perception while wearing a patch over my right eye. It was only for four weeks yet I could barely stand it. I do not know how people who have only one functional eye can manage their disability for the long term.

Despite my apparent abandonment of my blog, I have done my best to keep up with the news regarding my fellow nuclear bloggers as well as reading the recent posts on my blog roll. I could not attend the last two AREVA conference calls as I have been extremely busy but I am sure that Dan Yurman over at the Nuke Notes blog can fill me in on the details. I will have more time during the summer so I hope to put up at least two posts per week again.