we went to the dog park today. evie was playing along the edge of the path, where there are trees, sticks, and some "stick up" sort of branches or small trees that have snapped off over the winter.
she's three feet away, and i see her fall. she screams, cries--i grab her and when she pulls her hand away from her eye i see a bunch of scratches across her face, mostly in that path of flesh where we get dark undereye circles. jeremy and i check out what she'll let us see and think, for a moment, it's okay.
then she lets me pull her eyelid back, and i see blood. jeremy takes off running to get the car, i take off running with evie. people are staring, i assume they think some dog bit her.
the whole time, our little one is saying she doesn't want to go, she doesn't want to see the doctor, etc. i'm running with her and telling her we trust the doctor, they will make it okay. the minute i saw the blood i though she had damaged her eye, would be blind, all the horrible things you'd imagine. i thought all my internal organs fell through my pelvis, i really wanted to cry.
i jumped in the seat, held evie and tried to strap us both in. jeremy drove nascar-style to the hospital.
thank god for sparrow hospital. i ran into the er and said she took a stick to the eye 10 minutes ago. they got us right in, and after only a few minutes determined there was no damage to the eye. an hour or so of different eye exams followed to make sure, and the doctors, nurses, physicians assistants, etc were amazing. spectacular. they even kept her stocked with popsicles, showed her everything they'd do before they did it, and played silly games with her.
the doctor told us we were really good parents. it's nice to get a compliment like that, esp. given the situation.
i have never been so terrified. sometimes being a parent can be so frustrating or mundane that you forget how lucky you are, how blessed. holding her on my lap with a sock pressed over her eye, running with her thru the park--it was like having her born all over again, that fright and wait and oh-god-what-if-something-is-really-wrong.
it looks like the stick (which i suspect was a small tree, snapped off at its base) went through her skin, then scratched her lower inner eyelid. i cannot believe how lucky we were, how lucky she is. the doctors tell us the human body will always reflexively find a way to protect the eyeball from injury--as such, they haven't seen more than a handful of direct eye injuries in the decades they've been there.
i think i'll be lighting my saint's candles in the morning, and saying my thank you prayers, if not walking down to the catholic church here.
i can't believe how lucky we are, but i am so grateful for it. evie is our heart and our soul, and seeing her in any kind of pain (though she took it better than i can imagine myself taking it) just made me feel like everything had left my body.
so for the next seven days we will apply ointment to her wound, give her some really strong oral antibiotics, and give her carte blanche to have as many popsicles, as much ice cream, watch as many movies, as she wants. i was so relieved, i told her i felt like buying her a (non-conflict) diamond.
so do me a favor and say a little thanks to whomever you like to say such things to. i'll be saying mine, and saying another to maggie and ben, who rescued our dog from the hot car while we were in with evie.
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