It’s Monday morning. The phone rings. A time of distress. Someone has had a wonderful weekend water-skiing and urgently needs a new eye made up. While it’s OK to wear an artificial eye swimming, people need to know that if you hit the water hard it is likely to displace the eye prosthesis. We don’t recommend wearing the artificial eye for surfing, water-skiing or bungie jumping unless you’ve got a good spare.
The other way people lose artificial eyes is by wrapping them in a tissue and putting them on a bench. Someone else comes along and thinking it is rubbish, throws it out. Another risk for the unattended eye is the house hound. Dogs love to chew artificial eyes that are left within reach. If you need to rest the eye socket, we recommend you leave the eye in saline solution in a safe place.
I have a regular clinic in Darwin where I meet some great characters. I’ve heard several stories where the excesses of a big night out lead to someone waking up with a big headache and no eye prosthesis. I also know people who like to drop their artificial eye into someone else’s beer as a joke. We don’t recommend this, as we know of circumstances where the eye has accidentally gone down the hatch with the beer. This is unpleasant for both parties! It is expensive and inconvenient to lose your prosthesis so take care over the summer.
Do you have a story about losing your prosthesis that you’d like to share? I’d love to hear it.
One Response
As a result of receiving my prosthetic at an early age it was necessary to have it refitted just about yearly to keep up with the growth of the eye socket. An early warning of that was waking up in the morning missing my eye and having to search through the bed linens to find it. As luck would have it, it was usually under my pillow.
SvFiat