That looks like one nasty gash there.
Back about 15 years ago I had a TERRIBLE case of UVeitis. My eye specialist prescribed an eye drop. I filled the prescription at a grocery store pharmacy (it was Smith's grocery store in Lake Havasu City, AZ). I had been taking the eye drop for about a week and a half and was getting progressively worse as each day passed. I'm talking noticeably sicker from the time I woke up in the morning until later each night. It felt like I had an abscess in my eye, I couldn't eat, couldn't stand light of any kind, couldn't sleep...it was miserable. I also lost 15 pounds. I thought I also had the flu so when I called the doctor's office to tell them my eye didn't feel like it was getting any better I told them I didn't want to come in because I felt like I was getting the flu. They told me that I HAD to come in the following day, which I agreed but the the following day I was so sick my husband took me to the ER. After I got home from the ER my husband called the eye doctor. Since the eye doctor didn't have my file (this was in the evening) he asked my husband what eye drop he had prescribed. My husband read him the name and the doctor freaked out. He said he would have NEVER prescribed this med for my condition and for me to come down to his office right now that he would meet us there. He showed me a copy of the prescription he had written (I can't remember what the names were). He called the pharmacy while we were sitting right there, the man pulled the prescription and sure enough they had given me the wrong medicine. My doctor had to give me a shot in my eye, a new prescription and saw me every other day for a while.
I have never been so sick in my life. My doctor explained that if I had taken the medication he actually prescribed I would most likely be on the mend at this point and definitely not sicker. By the pharmacy giving me the wrong prescription, my disease had gotten a much stronger hold than it would have if I were treated properly from the beginning. My husband had to take off work to care for me and our baby (she was only a few weeks at the time). He didn't get paid for taking time off (he worked for a boat builder designing boats....you would just have to know his boss, if you wanted to get paid you had to be there. Christmas, you want to be paid, work Christmas day.
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The following day an attorney for the grocery store called me. I should have known that they were scared shitless of a law suit but they asked me what I wanted. I told them I wanted the days off my husband had to take to care for me, payment for cost of the trip to the ER and any additional doctor fees/costs incurred because of the worsening of the UVeitis. I gave them an estimate and the following day I got an expedited envelop with a check. Of course it stated on the check that by endorsing and depositing the check I would not be able to come back at a later date and sue the store.
I didn't ask for pain and suffering and I really should have, as I said before it was absolutely the most painful thing I have ever been through. My eye sight got so bad that it was like looking through glass that was smeared with Vaseline. It took MONTHS (like 4) for my eye sight to return to normal and took me a couple of months before I felt like I was getting back to normal physically. From having UVeitis I also developed shingles and passed them on (as chicken pox) to my two kids (one that was only 3 months at the time).
When I settled with the grocery store, all I wanted was what it cost us monitarily. What I didn't know whs what the UVeitis would do to me in the months to come because it was allowed to fester and get so bad. About a year later I had a stroke and found out I had Takayasu's Arteritis. The doctors think the UVeietis is what set everything in motion. Usually an auto-immune disease needs a "trigger" and they think the UVeitis was the trigger. A trigger needs to be something traumatic that happens to the body. I can't really blame the grocery store for my auto-immune disease as obviously I already had that in me and at some point something would have triggered it. So I actually don't know what I would have done if I had known everything that was to come from the UVeitis. Part of me is glad that all I received from the store was what it cost me at the time monitarily but the other part of me thinks they did owe me money for how much pain I was in. If I had been properly treated from the get go the disease wouldn't have progressed to the point that made me so terribly sick.
I still don't know if I would handle it any differently if it were to happen to me today. I know I could have taken them for a lot more, I know I deserved more than I recieved but another part of me is glad I didn't get all sue happy. It's a tough call Mack...do what you feel is right.
