It's a cracker.

I have now earned the nickname of Frank Spencer for my continuing calamities. It is well known that I am clumsy but things have gone too far! During Christmas Lee and I went to his sister's for a lovely meal. She put out crackers for everyone and not being one to miss out on a party hat and a plastic toy I was keen to tear into one. Lee and I shared a cracker but it didn't snap. So Lee decided to snap the exposed cracker - and it went in my eyes. Doh. At the time I made a fuss - it stung - but nobody really bothered, thinking I was just being awkward. Afterall, the gravy was being passed round and nobody wants to miss that at a family meal.

Late that night my eye was streaming, and didn't stop the next day, so the next evening I ended up in A&E, embarrassed and sore. I thought the young doctor would find it hilarious that I'd been hurt by a cracker but he was non-plussed. Apparently party poppers are worse for causing injury. I had strange orange drops put into my eye to allow the doctor to inspect it further. He asked if I had any other health problems. I told him I have ME. He asked how it effected me. I gave a brief description, assuming he was just interested in my particular case. Shockingly, he told me that doctors aren't taught about ME at medical school. That is why he wanted more information. Apparently, it is briefly mentioned in passing as an illness that is diagnosed when all other illnesses are discounted. It is an umbrella term for other conditions. He was not being rude - just sharing his limited knowledge of ME. I was (perhaps naively) surprised at the lack of information given to junior doctors about an illness that effects thousands of people in the UK.

It turns out I had a small scratch on my cornea and was given antibiotic eye cream. (Which I could taste within five minutes of applying -obviously going down the back of my throat from my eye! Yeuch!) So readers beware of flying debris from crackers and party poppers.

Incidentally, the joke and the gift inside the cracker were both shite. The party hat was, however, rather dapper.