Syphilis

Ah, my loyal bloggers. I know you all just check in on this thing to laugh at me. And just when you thought I had reached my max on funny stories, I hit one straight out of the park. The following is an account of my recent visit to the corneal specialist. Most of you know I had a weird-funk eye thing about 6 years ago. Almost lost my eye. Never fully recovered. If you want more details I will give them. So now that I have been here in Nashville for over a year, I felt the need to establish an eye doctor here, which partially broke my heart because Dr. Nevins in Searcy is like family, considering how I spent more time with him than anyone when all that was going on. So Wednesday I am at the corneal specialist, and with in a minute he tells me I have this condition called "interstitial keratitis," which is why my eye never fully healed. So he is explaining this all to me, and he gets to what the causes may be. This is how the conversation went.

MD: "The causes can include Herpes Simplex, bacterial infections, tuberculosis, syphilis, and some other things. You work in the medical profession so you have had your tb skin test, right?"
Me: "Yes. It was negative"
MD: "I doubt it's syphilis, so it's probably Herpes Simplex or caused by your bacterial infection."
Me (aka Naive idiot who doesn't realize syphilis is an STD): "What would happen if the cause was syphilis? How would they treat that? How would they know I had it"
MD: "We could run some tests, but I doubt it's syphilis."
Me: "Yea, could we run those tests, because if I told my mom it that syphilis could be a cause she would definetly want me to get tested just to rule it out."
MD: "Just tell her it may be "Louie's" then she won't know what it is."
Me: "She's a nurse."
MD (now I understand why he was smiling at me): "Well no fooling her then. Sure let's run a test, but I really doubt it is syphilis."
Me (GENIUS): "Well, I did spent a lot of time in several third world countries so let's do those tests just to make sure."

The funny thing is is that I didn't even realize syphilis was an STD until I was talking to my mom and sister later. So if you are asking, "CAROLINE how in the WORLD did you redeem yourself?" I would tell you that I didn't. That that doctor thinks I am some sick flussie that "made my way" through Haiti and the Dominican Republic. I am getting those syphilis test run next week. I will let you know if I am positive.