Member-only story
From Eye Strain to ICU
How my eye strain led to a friend’s health awakening
From self-involved to empathic
In 2010, I worked for a small business as a mobile income tax accountant. The service was top-rated, and because of this, I worked seven days a week, fifteen-hour days from January to Tax Day in April.
It was a lot of staring at computer screens, and I started having massive headaches. I decided this could be eye strain and saw an optometrist. He confirmed my suspicions and gave me glasses.
I was so disappointed. Five years earlier, both my husband, Anthony, and my best friend, Avina, had laser eye surgery to correct their vision. I didn’t want to be the one with glasses. I wouldn’t be alone for long because Anthony’s vision had started to slip in one eye, and the optometrists said he should have a correction or reading glasses.
Then, one day, I was taking Avina’s monthly Transaction Privilege Tax (TPT) forms to her Pho restaurant, and I found her lying on a cot behind the cash register.
I immediately started to mock her for sleeping on the job. I stopped when she told me she had a massive headache. She had been working a lot, so we chalked it up to exhaustion.
