My Halloween horror

Halloween turned into a true horror story...

Music playing, and drinks flowing, me and a friend were getting ready for our night out. I love Halloween, hitting the fancy-dress shops...and last year was no different. I’d already been a zombie, a witch, a dead doll… This time, I decided to be a creepy clown. Slapping on a pale foundation, I then painted thick black make-up on my lips. Next, I drew on big, dark stars from my forehead, across my eyes and down my cheeks. Colouring my eyelids with thick, black face paint, I finished it off with a heavy splash of glitter. ‘It’s going to be a good night,’ said my friend, the zombie bunny! We hit a bar first, and ended up in a nightclub around midnight. In the early hours, I pulled my friend over to the bar. ‘My eyes are really watering,’ I complained. Worrying my make-up might run, I popped to the bathroom. I noticed in the mirror that my eyes were bloodshot and they were really sore, too.

But, piling on more make-up so that I still looked the part, I tried to forget the pain.

‘Let’s call it a night,’ my friend suggested around 3am.

Waiting in the taxi queue, my left eye was killing me. I could barely open it. ‘I think I’m going blind,’ I panicked.

‘Don’t be such a drama queen!’ my mate laughed.

At home, I was scrubbing the make-up off but, as the water hit my left eye, it felt like razor blades were slicing my eyeball!

Barely able to sleep, I woke at 6am and my eyes were fused shut and throbbing in pain.

I tried to call my parents, but they couldn’t hear me.

I couldn’t make out the screen on my phone, so I tried using Siri to call my boyfriend Steven, 27.

Only it couldn’t understand my Scottish accent! When I finally got through to him 25 minutes later, he said he’d be straight over. By then, I was hysterical. Letting himself in, Steven was shocked at what he saw.

‘We must get you to hospital!’ he said as soon as he stepped through the bedroom door.

Steven dressed me, gave me sunglasses and guided me out to the car.

The jolt from driving over the speed bumps made my eyes sting.

Screaming as we got to A&E, the doctor saw me immediately.

‘You need to try to open your eye,’ he said. But it hurt too much. Putting numbing drops into my eye, slowly, the intense pain eased.

The doctor asked me to do an eye test, but all I could see was blurry outlines in the distance.

So he dropped yellow dye in my eyes to examine the damage.

‘There’s scratches all over the cornea and glitter behind your eye,’ he explained.

Both eyes were damaged, but the left was worse.

Prying out some sparkles, he told me that the scratches

It felt like razor blades were hitting my eyeball!

would take a long time to heal.

As the numbing drops wore off, the agony returned.

Prescribed antihistamines and painkillers, it was four days before I could open my eyes.

They were red and swollen and the doctor said to smother my eyelids with prescribed lotion four times a day.

An optician later confirmed that the cornea was damaged.

‘Your eyes are a lot more sensitive now,’ she said. ‘You’re going to need glasses.’

Make-up had damaged my eye permanently!

For nearly two months, I used drops and took painkillers.

I took six weeks off work because it was unbearable to look at a computer screen.

Even now, looking at the TV or my phone is uncomfortable.

I won’t be out this Halloween – I wouldn’t enjoy it the same.

However, I don’t blame the make-up brand for what happened to me – sadly it was just a one-off reaction. I still can’t believe it, though. What was supposed to be a fun night out, became a real-life Halloween nightmare.