This has been one hell of a week. After a weekend of hopping planes and renting cars, I showed up at MIT on Tuesday ready to settle down for three weeks of neutrino physics. The lump in my left eyelid, however, was a serious concern to me. What didn’t help the situation was that the RNC at MIT medical who looked at it was all set to send me to opthamology and/or surgery.
That worried me enough that I got on a plane the next day and headed back to California, where I wouldn’t have to pay full price for healthcare. That’s right — the great American privatized healthcare system at work. The lump in the eye wasn’t enough for admission to a Boston emergency room (did I really want to spend a night waiting at a Boston-area ER anyway?). So I had to spend good money to fly back to California to see my doctor.
It turned out to be a harmless cyst, leftover from some undetected long-past infection in my eye. It’ll be months of hot compresses three times daily until it goes away (or a quick surgery to scoop out the scar tissue forming the cyst, if heat doesn’t work). So thank goodness for simple lumps in the eyelid, I guess.
To add insult to injury, I caught a delightful cold the day I left for California. At the time, that left me with a lump in one eyelid, a runny nose, and deaf in one ear thanks to pressure changes disagreeing with my congestion. Thanks to Nyquil, at least I finally got an unbroken night of sleep!
After all of this, I’m chomping at the bit. I’ve been looking forward to my time at MIT for months, and I want to get back. After a nice weekend with my wife (spent avoiding the bad winter storms in Boston, mind you) I’ll be returning to the East coast to put my mind tightly into the issue of simulating our future neutrino detector’s veto system.
