Eyelid Infections Suck

    There are so many great things we can get away with in this time of masks. Pimples in the masked zone of the face go unseen. Crooked teeth, and anything stuck in between them, go unaddressed. Bad breath, nose hair, irritated skin, and so much else can be hidden and forgiven in these great times when only a sliver of our faces are shown.

    So, of course, where do I get a pimple?

    I guess it isn't really a pimple so much as an infected follicle. This isn't a totally new thing for me. Sometimes one of my eyelashes tries to claim a clog and close up, looking to create a chalazion the likes of which I haven't seen since 2008.

That year I was teaching high school with an independently contracted company and lacked health insurance, a big source of difficulty when one of my wisdom teeth fractured into shards and protruded to stab the opposing jaw toward the end of the previous year. After finally getting this settled, the stress and my reluctance to wash my face as properly as I should have led to the creation of a little red bump on my eyelid. This didn't stop me from doing my job, interviewing with a Japanese company, coming to Japan, meeting my husband or asking him out. I did all of that with a lump around the size of the tip of my pinky finger on my right eyelid and a smattering of red eye shadow on the left to match.

    I spent my off time with a hot compress resting on that eyelid and this little blemish that Web MD said would dissipate in a few weeks spent more than six months on my face, only relenting when I noticed that it had drifted toward the eyelash end of the eyelid and one of the follicles came to resemble the head of a pimple. I squeezed the thing lightly and everything came out, slowly, and disgustingly, and at work which was really the worst part.

    Since then, I have never had an infection take hold of the eyelid. I am pretty aware of when they try to start and usually manage them well, but this time the clogged follicle was in a place that I couldn't easily get to and the results have been less than charming.

I think it looks like a worm. 

    One of the great things about where I am in my life and in Japan now is that I know I have health insurance and in fact I already know a great ophthalmologist who is capable of helping me through this. I made a plan to go with my husband on his next day off but really lucked out in that the problem resolved itself before the day came. Just one day with a hot compress and a few good face washes and it actually went away.

    Also I feel so very lucky to be here now and to have spent the time I have in this area making the connections I have made. As a foreigner, knowing specialized doctors who don't treat YOU like the problem is a huge benefit.