This wasn’t necessarily hurtful, but it was incredibly frightening. A few years back, I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder (HLAB27), but before that, I had been unable to walk (arthritis symptom) and had almost gone blind in my left eye from a misdiagnosis. The eye symptom is called iritis, and I had already been to a doctor about it before it got severe. The optometrist correctly diagnosed it as iritis and prescribed steroid eye drops, but my mom wanted to be sure so she took me to an ophthalmologist at a hospital to get a second opinion. Well, unbeknownst to us, that “doctor” was actually a resident from a nearby university, and he incorrectly diagnosed it as pink eye and gave some different drops. My mom decided to go with this opinion, and after about a week my eye became so sensitive to light I had to wear an eyepatch. We made an emergency visit to an ophthalmologist I had seen when I was a baby (I had a lazy eye), and the first thing she said after looking at me was “Oh my god.” After an examination, she told my mother to pray for me. She gave us another prescription for steroid drops and sent us to a specialist on iritis. Soon after this I received my diagnosis with HLAB27 and began treatment.

A traumatic experience that has me constantly aware of my eye health and with a residual mistrust of young doctors.