I did something stupid. It was one of those things that makes total sense in your brain at the time but the fraction of a second after you execute doing the thing that seemed like such a good idea is when you realize you made a horrible judgment call. If my father knew, I would get a lecture. I know him, he is Doctor Safety. He gave me the undertow lecture every time I went to the beach and always advocated for safety in everything.
Let's just say that there was never any intent to be unsafe; it was one of those things where you want to know if the burner is hot, so you test it to see—with your finger. That kind of bad decision making. That's what happened, and I'm still paying for it.
The other day I was working on a project, and I needed a light to see under one of the printers. I grabbed the flashlight closest to me, which happened to be a high-powered ultraviolet flashlight. I got this flashlight for glow-in-the-dark filament and other black light reactive filament because I needed something powerful to charge them up.
I did the thing I do a lot—I dropped the flashlight. I drop things all the time. In this case, I was worried I'd broken the bulbs. It's an LED flashlight, but it's still breakable. So I turned it on and looked at it to see if the bulbs were lit. You got what just happened there, right? I looked at a powerful ultraviolet light straight on. Stupid.
The bulbs weren't broken. That I discovered from the fraction of a second I looked at the light before I tore my eyes away. But the damage had been done. The light was an extra powerful one I had bought. But it gets worse. I don't have natural lenses in my eyes. I've had them replaced with artificial lenses. People who have cataract surgery have their natural lenses that are clouded as a result of the cataract, replaced with artificial lenses. I had the same thing done, but for corrective vision purposes as I wasn't a candidate for LASIC or other options.
And I love the lenses. They are wonderful and I haven't needed glasses at all, nor will I need reading glasses as I get older because I don't have natural lenses that can harden, making it harder to see things close up.
But there is a downside: the artificial lenses don't have the UV protection you get from your natural lens. Which means I got a fraction of a second's worth of damaging light to my eyes. The left eye seems to be fine, as it was further away from the light I angled towards me as I turned the flashlight on. The right eye has had the image of the three bulbs persisting for several days now.
It's getting better, and I suspect things will heal completely, but what a stupid move. And what a big lesson learned.
The Big Boy Update: My son had a great first day of school. He came home telling me about how he was going to be in charge of ordering pizza for the upperclassmen at the school as a fundraiser. It's for his end-of-year capstone trip, which it looks like he'll get to take this year. He's quite excited about being the leader of the school in this way.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter started choir tonight. She wasn't going to do it again this year but she changed her mind at the last minute. She is going to like it a lot more this year. They have a lot more students in the capital city girls choir.
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