Pirah!

In Malaysia, when one says "Piiraahh!", it actually is a gesture saying "I know you're kidding me and you can go fly kite".

:)

And most times, it is said in a very friendly manner and between close friends who do not take offence with each other.

But in my case, it's different.

Apparently, a 'pirah' is actually a blood-sucking tick in Terengganu and Kelantan dialect. I had no bloody idea! (And I mean that literally... :D)

Three Mondays ago, I woke up with my right eye feeling like it was boxed. As if someone had given me a punch while I was asleep. I thought it was just a typical eye-infection and I brushed it off thinking I'd be OK.

On Tuesday, I discovered a small dangling thing above my eyelashes. I started to believe that it was a stye (or a ketumbit, in Malay). I played with the dangly-thingy every time I stand in front of the mirror, pushing it back and forth hoping that it would fall off eventually.

By Tuesday afternoon, I had tiny black specks on my lower right eyelashes. By then, I had gotten a bottle of Optrex to dispose. What intrigued me then was that those dark specks dissolved in the solution. After the second time washing, I deducted that those black specks were dried blood.

Come Wednesday, the pain got worst.

By Thursday evening, the pain was unbearable. The dangly-thingy was by then a big dark dangly-thingy. The specks of blood seemed to come continuously from it. I was by then terribly worried for myself. The eyelid was throbbing. No redness of the retina, cornea, iris or whatever terms you have for the eyeballs. Just the dangly-thingy, throbbing pain and the eyelid.

So I drove myself to the hospital. When the medical officer asked me what was wrong, I asked him if he knew what was wrong because I couldn't. I pointed to him my eyelid. I answered the same way when he was not satisfied with my attitude. But truly, I did not know what it was. I know I could have lived without the attitude, but it was too excruciating not to have any. :P

I must have waited for about half an hour before I was called into the doctor's room.

Doc: Sakit apa?

Me: Tak tau la, doktor. It has been here since Monday. *pointing the right eyelid*

Doc: Apa tu?

Me: (I was like 'you tell me, you're the doc')

For the first 5 minutes, the doctor was really irritated with me. She touched my eyelid, I screamed. She tried to lift my eyelid, I yelled at her. She had that irritated face on when she said she'd have to sent me to the specialist the next morning if I wouldn't let her do anything.

Then a nurse came and asked what was the matter. The doctor said she didn't know what it was and that it was dangling slightly above my eyelid. The nurse took a look and said, "Hmmm... kutu kot...". About then, another nurse came and asked the same question. One look and she said, "Kutu la tu..."

By then, the doctor had gained some confidence. She mellowed down, spoke to me kindly "Why don't you hold your eyelid so that you know where to touch, and I try to pull it out for you?" Right then she reached out for a long tweezer. Again, I screamed "You are not going to use that!"

"Let's try," she said gently. Such a fool I was to fall into her soft words.

As soon as that tweezer landed on that thing, it was as if a thousand pins were poking my eyelid.

With no more shame, I cried.

I wanted to tell her that I pushed out 3 babies and they didn't hurt that bad. Then I thought I'd sound like a smart-alec. So I kept it to myself. And at that moment, I wished I had not brought myself in that situation. I wished I had just stayed home and waited for that thing to just fall off by itself - whatever it was, even if it was an alien.

The doctor agreed to administer local anesthetic for me.

While the nurse prepared me on the examination bed, I shut my eyes real tight. Seriously, I was scared. When the nurse told me to grip tight while she injected the anesthetic, I thought of the 2 girls waiting for me outside. What if I didn't wake up, what if this kills me? And again, I wished I didn't make the decision to be there.

In less than 5 seconds, the doctor came and said "OK, come... kita cuba tarik."

I was resisting, for fear that the anesthetic hadn't come into effect. Too late though, the doctor pulled it out even before I was able to say "'w" for "Wait". Amazingly though, I couldn't feel anything.

They were jubilant! It was as if they had cured me from some alien disease. Me? Well, I was glad to even make it through alive...

:P

But it was not the end of the ordeal just yet.

The next day, the place that was 'bitten' was really itchy that I wished I could get a floor scrub and scrubbed the itch away.

But the whole thing really got my curiosity that I just had to google this thing.

So here's what I found...

Uhuh, that's the thing. That's how it looked like when it was alive. 

And that's how it looked post-eyelid. :P

I wouldn't want to know how it got there in the first place...