PRAISE GOD!!!!

For those of you who don't know, I had a very scary eye infection in college (1999). I slept in my contacts, got 3 scratches on my cornea, pseudomonus (a beast of a bacteria) got in and came VERY close to eating my eye away. My eye doctor, the beloved Dr. Nevins, said we obviously had prayer on our side because he really expected me to loose my eye. After the initial scare was over, there were months and years of healing. I went to corneal specialists, I took every type of steroid drop you can imagine, and it never healed on it's own. I was an anomaly. The infection was gone but the two ulcers remained. They would "flare up," which is when the vessels would start to grow into the ulcers, the ulcer would break down, and the scar would get worse. Not to mention it hurt like heck.

The doctors slowly weened me down to the lowest dosage of medication my eye would tolerate to keep it from breaking down. It took two to three years after the incident to decrease my meds to pred mild dilated to 50% with saline tears every other day, for you medical professionals). Of course, this meant I was dependant on steroids which increased my risk for glaucoma. This is the dosage I have been on since 2001.

Fast-forward to seven months ago. I realized I had been forgetting my medicine for about a month. I realized it didn't hurt and had no symptoms like the past. I monitored it and weened myself off the steroids.

Today, I went to see Dr. Nevins in Searcy, just to catch up. He's like family to me, seeing as we saw each other every day for a good 5 months when this all happened and he's been following me ever since. I drop by when I am in town and he hounds me about my love life and Nashville (he attended Med School at Vanderbilt). He plopped me in his chair, and... MY EYE IS THE BEST IT'S BEEN SINCE THE ACCIDENT!!!!! The vessels are "ghostly," and I am Doctor-approved to stay off steroids! The ulcers/scars are still there and impede my vision, but they are the faintest they've been.

PRAISE GOD. When the accident initially happened, literally 1000s of people were praying for me. It's the only reason I have that eye today, I am confident. So for ALL of you who prayed, helped my family take care of me, and supported me through that time, I could not let this day pass without saying thank you. This is a milestone the doctor's never thought I would reach.

P.S. The moral of this story is two-fold... The power that is prayer, and don't sleep with your contacts. :)