Sulfacetamide and the Meaning of Life

In the fall of 1995, I came down with a raging case of conjunctivitis, known in my little universe as Pinkeye.

It was nasty, as pinkeye usually is, and went from sort of yucky to gloppy and swollen in a matter of an hour or two. (I briefly considered doing a Google image search for pinkeye for this post, but I'm betting that if you've ever seen or had it, your imagination will paint a picture that's quite disgusting without my help.)

So I went to see Dr. Friendly on a Friday.

Being a genial sort of fellow, he assured me that he's 'seen worse' and 'here, take this prescription and you'll clear up right away.'

I stopped at the pharmacy and filled the prescription for Sulfacetamide drops. Did the first dose in my car before heading home.

My eyes started to clear up right away, but I started to feel sort of sick. I was getting a headache, my sinuses were... weird. No drainage, but they felt full. My throat was sort of tight, and it was hard to swallow. When I closed and rubbed my eyes, I could see the image of all the veins and capillaries. It was really strange.

On Sunday night, I was sleeping on the couch in the living room because lying down to sleep really bothered my head. About two in the morning, I suddenly sat up. I had to pee.

In the darkened living room, lit only by the light from the aquarium, was a little Chinese man. He had a long braid down his back, and was wearing a yellow robe. Little satin slippers peeked from under the hem of his robe. The bottom of the robe was a little dusty and frayed, and there were a few threads hanging from the edges.

I felt no surprise at all.

I got my feet on the floor to go to the bathroom, but he was in the way. He realized it as I was going to ask him to please move, and bowed to me as he moved to one side.

"I am Ha Loo Sin Nation." he said, and gestured expansively with his left arm for me to proceed to the bathroom. (it wasn't until a week or so later that the meaning of his name hit me.)

When I came back, he was still standing next to the couch. I walked around him, kicked off my slippers and pulled the blankets up around my shoulders.

For the next fifteen minutes or so, we had a conversation with no words. He communicated to me the secrets of the universe, one of which was the meaning of life. It made perfect sense, what he said, and I have wished a hundred times or more that I could remember what he told me. I do remember that everything was in threes. Three of this, three of that, but everything else is lost.

When he had finished telling me about life, he took my right hand and bowed over it in a courtly way.

I went back to sleep.

When I woke up on Monday morning, he was gone. I called my doctor around 8, and he told me that I was apparently allergic to the eyedrops and that I probably shouldn't be taking them.

I went to see him later that afternoon, and he gave me some steroid drops to clear up the inflammation that had been caused by the Sulfacetamide.

I've wondered from time to time what would happen if I got those eyedrops again. Would Ha Loo Sin Nation appear to me? Would he once again explain life to me? Would I remember to write it down?

It really was an interesting experience, but it took almost four months for my veins and capillaries to stop appearing when I rubbed my eyes.

Now the years have tinged the experience with humor, but Dr. Friendly told me that it was actually sort of serious. Apparently, since a person's eyes are located pretty close to the brain, the allergic reaction could have been much worse.