Pink Eye

Image via WikipediaOn Friday, I was having a little bit of trouble with one of my eyes.  It was a little bit irritated and watering a lot.  I tried using a little Visine eye drops, but it didn't really help much.  Saturday morning, I woke up and my eye was a lot more irritated and the eyelid was swollen and red.

I immediately started to think that I was suffering from conjunctivitis, also know as pink eye.  Thankfully, my doctor's office is open for a couple of hours on Saturday mornings.  I called them to see if there was any way possible for the doctor to see me that morning.

Once I finally got through to my doctor's office, the person who answered the phone asked me how soon I could get to the office.  I told her 15 minutes, and she asked me to come in right away.  To my surprise, nobody was waiting in the waiting room and took me right back in.

Instead of seeing one of the normal doctor's in the practice, they told me that I would be seeing a nurse practitioner.  I didn't really care because I have seen nurse practitioner's in the past.  This particular practitioner recently joined the practice and works one or two Saturday's a month to give the other doctor's a break.

As I had said previously, I have seen nurse practitioners before without any problems.  I was somewhat disconcerted, however,  when after introducing herself she left briefly and came back with her big diagnosis medical book.  She said she had another full time job during the week and only did the practitioner gig one or two days a month so she wanted to make sure she asked me everything for the diagnosis.

She ended up agreeing that I had pink eye and prescribed some drops for me to use for treatment.  I am 50 years old, and I have never had anybody bring a medical book into the exam room while at the doctor's office.  Has anybody else ever experienced this sort of thing?

Related articles

• Conjunctivitis (bupa.com.au)