On Thursday, Zach broke a toy. With his face.
I'm usually pretty cool in a crisis, and feel quite confident in my first aid skills and medical-ish education. But when my 6 year old started screaming that he couldn't see, and there was blood all around his eye, I felt that cool slipping away!
Actually, it was quite unsettling that he quickly stopped screaming, and then was just sort of wimpering weakly, almost as if he was going into shock or something.
And then I got the blood wiped off his eye to see where it was coming from, and I watched as his eyelid rapidly filled with dark purple blood (darker than it is now, in the pictures). It puffed up around in the middle of his eyelid, until it was about a half an inch high. And then I watched it swell the entire lid until he couldn't open it, and I couldn't even lift the lid by his eyelashes. It wouldn't budge.
The boys' dad was going to pick them up in about 10 minutes, and I couldn't get a hold of him to tell him what had happened, so I just had to wait. In the meantime, I put a cold Taco Bell sauce packet and damp cloth on his eye and tracked down Mandy, who is a nurse. She was working at the hospital that night. We agreed that with an impact that hard, with only a thin eyelid for protection, and you know, him screaming that he couldn't see, that it was better to be safe than sorry. Or blind.
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| This is the toy. Or what's left of it. The top, clear part is in shards. The bottom red plastic is cracked and in pieces, too. |
I'm usually pretty cool in a crisis, and feel quite confident in my first aid skills and medical-ish education. But when my 6 year old started screaming that he couldn't see, and there was blood all around his eye, I felt that cool slipping away!
Actually, it was quite unsettling that he quickly stopped screaming, and then was just sort of wimpering weakly, almost as if he was going into shock or something.
And then I got the blood wiped off his eye to see where it was coming from, and I watched as his eyelid rapidly filled with dark purple blood (darker than it is now, in the pictures). It puffed up around in the middle of his eyelid, until it was about a half an inch high. And then I watched it swell the entire lid until he couldn't open it, and I couldn't even lift the lid by his eyelashes. It wouldn't budge.
The boys' dad was going to pick them up in about 10 minutes, and I couldn't get a hold of him to tell him what had happened, so I just had to wait. In the meantime, I put a cold Taco Bell sauce packet and damp cloth on his eye and tracked down Mandy, who is a nurse. She was working at the hospital that night. We agreed that with an impact that hard, with only a thin eyelid for protection, and you know, him screaming that he couldn't see, that it was better to be safe than sorry. Or blind.
So, for the first time in my life, I drove someone to the Emergency Room. The other two times Zach has been there, he arrived by ambulance.
The freezing cold car ride (we were lucky if it was double digits) seemed to do quite a bit for the swelling, and by the time we got there, he could open his eye again.
He did manage to get an abrasion on his cornea, through his eyelid. I don't know about eye injury statistics, but that just sounds awful. But it was minor, and most of the damage was to that wonderful eyelid. Just imagine if he hadn't blinked fast enough!
The E.R. doctor got us an appointment with an ophlalmologist the next day. Poor Zach missed half a day of school (okay, he wasn't sad about that part) and got all sorts of weird drops in his eyes. It was so weird to see him with his pupils dilated! But he didn't mind since he got a pair of those ugly disposable sunglasses to wear. The office wasn't exactly used to having little kids around, so Zach and Luke got indulged by the staff a little bit, and Luke got a pair of shades, too.
And his eyeball was given a clean bill of health. The abrasion was healing nicely, and quickly. It's too bad; I think he would have enjoyed wearing an eye patch. Arrrr!
Get this; the next night, Zach caught the end of a light saber in the same eye. Ouch!
These pictures were all taken 3 days after the initial facial collision. His eyeshadow is a little too pretty. I wonder if I could recreate it with real makeup?
When his eyes are open, you can hardly even see it.
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