On Thursday, while I was doing some work on the computer, Michael said, “Mommy, your eye is red.” Since Sean and Michael had woken up early (in effect making me wake up earlier than normal), I replied, “Yes, sometimes people’s eyes are red when they don’t get enough sleep.” He said it a couple more times throughout the day and I kept repeating the same answer. I thought nothing of it.
Later that evening, my husband Reggie came home. “What happened to your eye?” he asked. “It’s really red.” I went to the bathroom mirror to see what all of the fuss was about and there was a bright red patch in my eye. Up until that point, I had not noticed anything (feeling-wise) different about my eye. However, the moment I saw the bright red, my eye began to itch all of a sudden. I quickly searched my mind to see if anything out of the normal had happened the previous night or that morning, because I had never seen anything like it in my eye before. “One of the kids probably poked me in the eye by accident,” I told Reggie. (I really had no idea what had happened.)
My eye still had a bright red patch on Friday, so I began to get a bit concerned. We were going away until Monday (to my family reunion which I’ll write more about tomorrow), so I hoped that I didn’t need to go to an ophthalmologist before leaving. Fortunately, I didn’t. Although it looked scary, it was simply a subconjunctival hemorrhage (also known as red eye). Basically, a tiny blood vessel had broken just underneath the clear surface of my eye. The great thing is that it: isn’t contagious; doesn’t need any special treatment and it usually disappears within a week or two. (As I type this, the bright red patch in my eye has already become much smaller.)
So, if you wake up one morning and part of your eye is bright red, don’t panic. If that’s the only symptom, you’re probably fine. Call your doctor (of course), but keep in mind that it’s probably nothing more than a subconjunctival hemorrhage. You can read more about the condition on the MayoClinic website here.
