I just opened my shop and now I have a weird eyeball!

Sunde White, owner of Sunde White Industries writes and illustrates a story about her surfers eyeball called pinguecula

It’s fine I guess

Welp, I have a weird eyeball now. A couple months ago I noticed a bright white spot on my eyeball surrounded by blood vessels.  Of course I was like, “Okay, my worst nightmare has finally happened, I have eye cancer.  I need to start preparing.” But then I visited the Google machine and it’s called Pinguecula or Surfer’s Eye.  Geez louise, I just got over Surfer’s Ear and now I have Surfer’s Eye???

Is surfing an addiction if it makes you deaf and blind and you keep doing it?  Asking for a friend.

Anyway, they say it’s caused by sun exposure, dust, sand and wind so it’s common with surfers. The weird thing is, I don’t think it was caused by my surfing, actually, because I remember when the irritation happened.  When my shop was getting its walls put up I walked into the enclosed space with all the sawdust floating around and felt something lodge in my eyeball.   Some microscopic sawdust had settled into the white of my eye and then nestled in deeper each time I blinked.  It was so bad I took my contact out and rinsed my eye and it felt fine after that.  But then, a few days later, I noticed a white spot on my eye to the left of my cornea.

To make it worse, with all the bad woodworking I’ve been doing to build pieces for my shop, more sawdust exposure caused my eye to get even more irritated.  Not to gross you out but it’s not just a white dot anymore, it’s like a lumpy fatty deposit stuck to the white of my eye!  And yes, I do admit that I have been surfing through it which does irritate it more.

All the doctors online are like, there’s no fixing it, you just have to get surgery.  But I refuse to accept that it will never ever ever never never go away in all the years I have left to live??? That seems a bit extreme. I’m not a scientist but doesn’t human tissues regenerate and heal over time?

I’ll do anything to not get a scary eye surgery so for now I am treating it with hot compresses and Neosporine (don’t freak out about this, this is an old school method I’ve used to treat cornea scratches and pink eye during all the years I didn’t have health insurance and obviously I am not suggesting anyone else do this, it’s just a home remedy that has always worked for me personally.) And guess what?  It’s slowly going away bit by bit!

But for the next month or so I will be sitting in my newly opened shop, greeting the general public with a crazy glowing orb in my eye.  No biggie, just ignore me and enjoy all the fun stuff in my shop!

I’m open Tuesday afternoons, Wednesday through Friday 12-7 and Saturday 12-5!  Come visit me if you’re in Pacifica, I’m next to Oceana Market.

164 Eureka sq

Pacifica CA 94044

See you soon, if I don’t go blind first!

sunde white industries gift shop in pacifica 164 Eureka sq

Open for business!

Sunde White's new gift shop is open in Pacifica 164 Eureka sq 94044

The inside of my shop!