First Trip to the ER

I am honestly surprised that we have made it nearly 4 years and never had to take Levi or Joel to the ER or urgent care center. Thankfully, our first visit ended up being pretty minor, but it was still a scary experience! On Tuesday evening Levi was in the backyard while Philip was finishing putting up our new fence (yay!) and he found a thin stick to play with. He was swinging the stick around his head and accidentally hit himself in the eye. He was immediately a sobbing mess, so we knew this was worse than his usual injuries, he is generally pretty tough and easily consoled. I took him inside, pried his hand off his left eye and rinse it with sterile solution. As I was looking in his eye it was very red, and I could see some scratches on the surface of his eye across his cornea over his iris. I was pretty sure he had a corneal abrasion. I called his pediatrician and was told to loosely cover his eye and bring him to the ER.

Once there, we were checked in pretty quickly and taken back to the exam room. Levi was very quiet and brave. It was weird to see him as a patient with the little band on his arm. When the nurse interviewed him he shyly admitted that he "banged a stick into his eye" and when asked who was holding the stick he just put his head down and patted his chest. Poor guy was embarrassed. He also asked a couple of cute, funny questions; "Am I going to have to live here at this hospital?" and "Am I going to have to get a glass eye?" I reassured him that neither of those things would be happening.

When the doctor came in he answered her questions in a similar way and was very calm and obedient, following all her instructions very well. She put some special drops in his eye (he was not a fan of this, but did his best to do what she said) and then looked at his eye with a black light. I wish I had a picture of this! The nurse in me was fascinated! The drops had dye in them that clung to anything that was not completely smooth, so you could easily see the two long cuts in the surface of his cornea, as well as a couple tiny ones. The doctor explained that the cornea heals incredibly well and quickly, but since his abrasions were pretty long and deep it might take up to 48 hours. She prescribed some antibiotic drops to prevent infection and put an eye patch on the keep out the light (which was making him hurt) as well as remind him not to rub his eye (which would cause the injury to worsen). He was to return the next day to his regular doctor to have his eye checked with the black light again and see how it was healing.

I treated Levi to his first ever slurpee on the way home for being such a good patient

Thankfully, when we had his eye check on Wednesday his cornea was almost completely healed and he was cleared to loose his pirate look. Thank you God for giving us such amazing eyes, and for keeping Levi safe from a more dangerous penetrating injury! We will have to continue the antibiotic drops for a total of 7 days, which is a battle three times a day...yeesh, but other than that Levi is good to go! Thank you to our God for healing and to everyone who was praying for our little guy!