When on Thursday I started getting headaches when I used my mobile phone I became worried, by Saturday morning I had a host of symptoms and was starting to be frightened for my long-term health. Read more about this in Part 3 if you’ve not already.

By three o’clock my eye had gotten much worse. It was extremely bloodshot with one particular area of my eye looking as though it had been damaged in some way. There was a partial ring of bloodshot vessels surrounding 20% of the circumference of my iris. When I looked in the mirror I could see an off white bubble just next to the most bloodshot part of my eye, a disfiguration of my actual iris. I was horrified. The familiar circle of my iris looked as though it had had a tiny circular bite taken out of it. I couldn’t quite believe what was happening to me. Not only had my eye become terribly painful and watery, it was accompanied with an unpleasant scrapping sensation with white hot pin prick pain every time I closed my eye lid or blinked.

Whilst looking in the mirror, I realised what the horrible scrapping sensation I’d been experiencing was (which I must reitterate was now excruciatingly painful). Every time I closed my eye I could feel my eye lid scrapping over the bubble and it made my eye water like mad. It was so raised that it was actually scraping against my eyelid now. Not only did my eyeball have a dull throbbing ache but at the point where the bubble was it hurt with a sharp stabbing pain.

By this point I was pretty much convinced I’d got some kind of Cancer of the Eye. More Google Research didn’t help:

• Adult Eye Cancer – [Link Now Dead]
• Eye Melanoma – [Link Now Dead]

I attempted to contact the out of hours Doctor via the emergency number but there was a queue and I still felt it might wait until Monday. I think I was just frightened by then and attempting to put it off. So I rang NHS Direct to ask their advice and they told me in no uncertain terms to go to Casualty. I went directly to the Accident & Emergency Department at the local hospital, the Royal Lancaster Infirmary (RLI). Read more about my experiences at RLI in Part 5.

More Background to the events that culminated in my trip to A&E last Saturday. If you have already read Part 2 (including The Report on lens damage) you’ll be able to see why when I started getting headaches whenever I used my mobile phone I became worried.

I was starting to think maybe I had dropped my mobile phone and damaged it, somehow causing it to give off more radiation than I could cope with. It seemed unbelievable but I could think of no other explanation.

Each time I took a phone call on my phone my eye would indeed water. I could almost feel it bubbling in the heat that my phone was giving off. At first I told myself it was just psychosomatic. Which clearly made my pain and discomfort all Snowball’s fault for putting the idea in my head.

However the more time passed and the worse my symptoms got the more I started to consider the worst. A whole phantasmagoria of possible ailments and horrific health conditions swam through my head as increasingly distinct possibilities. All I can say to you is: “Never ever Google your symptoms if you are feeling unwell!”

I believe it started on Thursday and by this point (Saturday morning) I had:

• a persistent minor headache all the time specifically focused on the left of my head;
• a severe headache (lasting about two hours) following any use of my phone (even just a 20-30 second call);
• my left ear ached, and my inner ear hole was very sore and tender to the touch;
• my left eye was becoming increasingly bloodshot and sore;

By three o’clock things had gotten much worse. Continued in Part 4.

More Background to the events that culminated in my trip to A&E last Saturday, and following on from Part 1.

Snowball (Dave) has been talking to me about the perils of mobile phone usage for a long time. He has most recently been quoting a study which proposed eyeball bubbling!

Rapport Faculty of Medicine’s Research

So now every time I ring Snowball he taunts me. “Is your eye watering?” He says at the beginning of the call for no apparent reason. He talks about the exhibition we attended for a bit, and then he does it again. “Is your eye getting hot?” Again I ignore him and we continue. “Can you feel it bubbling?” He is ringing me on my mobile from his landline and thus it entertains him to remind me of the dangers. I acknowledge that my ear feels hot and we agree to carry on our phone conversation in person.

On Thursday it got markedly worse and I realised something was wrong. Continued in Part 3.

Since I was a small boy I have occasionally maintained that at some point in the future I am going to lose my right hand and my right eye. Whilst drunk at University and in melancholy moods I would contemplate cutting my hand off so that I was somehow in control of the action I felt convinced must surely occur sooner or later. Sometimes my contemplation would include a knife, and yet somehow I’m sat here typing this two handedly.

I have recently become distressed by the notion that I may have got the wrong side. When asked whether a certain freckle or a scratch which adorns my face is on the left or the right I become confused. This is surely because my familiarity with my own image is wholly dependent upon mirrors which reflect my mirror image rather than my true likeness.

Can you imagine my future distress if I’d lopped off the right only to have an accident which causes me the loss of my left!

For the benefit of readers of a sensitive disposition, I’m going to resist my rather gruesome urge to describe previous contemplations I’ve had relating to the removing my right eyeball.

Anyhow enough of my curious childhood auto-amputee -ism. I’m just trying to give you some background to events that culminated in my trip to A&E last Saturday. Read Part 2 for more details.