Last week I had an unfortunate, and rather inconvenient, trip to the ER, and surprisingly I was the patient. I think in my whole life I've been the patient in an ER once, and it was when I fell off my bike and fractured my jaw. At least, I'm pretty sure I went to the ER; I don't really remember the details, just the blood pouring from my jaw and the thought of "OW OW OW OW OW" (I was too young to swear back then...).
So, back to last week's story. It was Monday night, and I was preparing for my company's quarterly retreat. My plan was to put the boys to bed, do some laundry, clean my house, and pack for me and the kids (the kiddos were staying at my in-laws' house). I got D to bed and started picking up his room, when my eye had an unfortunate and sudden interaction with a cardboard box--and not just any cardboard box, but a Costco sized Huggies box, which means it was a heavy duty cardboard box. And not just any part of the box, but the corner of the lid, so it was nice and sharp. The next thing I knew, I was on my knees in absolute pain. My eye was watering so badly that I swore it was bleeding. I couldn't open my eyelid, and felt like I was storing part of the box under my eyelid as a memento. After a minute, the pain hadn't subsided, so I went to my bathroom to see if I could find a piece of cardboard or something in my eye. My eyelid was practically glued shut, and when I tried to force it open the pain was so intense (not to mention my eye was super sensitive to the light) that I gave up trying and just sat on the toilet and cried. Poor B2 -- he came in and tried to help me, but I was trying so hard not to scare him (I was already imaging the phone calls he would make to random people in my phone directory -- "Hi someone-Mommy-hasn't-talked-to-in-weeks-or-years, my mommy is crying on the toilet and can't see anything. Wanna come play?") that I tried not to cry in his presence and asked him to go play in another room. After a few more minutes--or seconds, as this pain was making time seem non-existent--I finally called my mother-in-law to come look at it. She brought over my father-in-law, just in case, and were at my house in a short time. Meanwhile, the OCD part of me figured that if I'm going to go the ER, at least I should change B2's sheets so he can sleep in clean sheets. So, I changed his bed, one eye tightly closed and the pain making me weak.
My mother-in-law came over, and I was finally able to pry open my eye enough for her to see it. When I did that, I realized that my vision was completely blurred--I could barely see straight ahead. It was almost as bad as looking through frosted glass (the stuff in your shower, not the kind when it snows). I finally resolved that I should go to the ER, because I was terrified that I was going to go blind in that eye. And, the worst part about that? I couldn't play sports anymore. Yes, honest to goodness, that was my fear. :) So, my father-in-law and neighbor give me a blessing, my father-in-law stays back to watch the kids, and my mother-in-law drives me to the hospital.
We get to the ER and get admitted almost immediately. Why, you ask? Because we missed the urgent care closings by about 10 minutes. Go figure--this can't be a CHEAP stupid mistake, it has to be an EXPENSIVE stupid mistake. Anyway, at the ER, they give me some numbing drops (joy of joys), I finally start to relax (my pulse at the intake was 117 beats per minute, nearly double my resting rate. My mother-in-law made sure to point out that at least I was burning some extra calories), and after what seems like forever the doctor (and his med student shadow) come in. He puts the magnifying machine up to my eye and starts to tell me that he'll add these drops that will make my injury able to be seen when he said, "Well, actually, I can see it right here--I don't even need the drops!" He adds them anyway to show the full extent of the damage, and here's approximately what it looked like:
(The bright green is the injury; and yes, I wish I had gotten a picture of my actual injury--it was probably slightly smaller than this, and more circular)
He confidently announces that I have a corneal abrasion, meaning that I scratched off part of my cornea against that stupid box. For those who don't remember 9th grade biology:
The cornea is the outer part of the area that protects the pupil, which is actually a hole. So, basically, it keeps stuff out of your eye hole, and I had scratched off a good chunk of mine--approximately the diameter of a small pea. So, they give me some antibiotics and generic LorTab (thank goodness!), tell me I'll be good in 36-48 hours, and send me on my way, a few hundred dollars poorer and still in absolutely misery (the numbing drops wore off much faster than the LorTab kicked in).
To make an already-too-long story just a bit shorter, I was in terrible pain the next day. It felt like I had a piece of glass under my eyelid, and every time my eyelid twitched or my eyeball moved (which happens WAY more than you think...), it sent a sharp pain to my eye. By Wednesday morning, the sharp pains were gone, and was replaced with a dull pain like I had been poked in the eye really hard. Oh, wait, I had... On Wednesday, I was also able to keep my eye open for brief (but lengthening) amounts of time. By Thursday, the pain was completely gone and I could keep my eye open all the time; however, the vision in that eye was still blurry. I went to a check up with an eye doctor on Friday, and he said that it will take about 2-3 weeks for my vision to completely return. But, every day I notice improvements, and only really have difficulty with reading small print.
That's the story of my expensive stupidity. So, lesson learned: look before you bend down to pick up wipes off the floor, because you just might rip out half of your eye.
