Ara's Eye

We had a hard day today. Ara scratched her eye with a juice box straw and then rubbed it frantically and managed to get all of her upper eyelashes stuck under her eye lid. She wouldn't let me near the eye to see what was wrong but by the way she was screaming I felt a trip to the ER was in order. Lots of feeling powerless while she cried hysterically and was held down by countless doctors trying to pry her eye open in sued. The first doctor kept yelling at her that she was 3 and she was old enough to know to open her eye. He tried twice, when he returned to the room the third time I wasn't going to let him touch her again but luckily he had decided the same thing and he sent us onto another part of the hospital.

The third time they tried to hold her down it took FIVE people.

She screamed for me.

Over and over.

"It hurts"
"Momma!"
"No thank you PLEASE"
You have never felt your heart break like it breaks when you are powerless to help your child.

She was terrified and traumatized. So the stupid resident comes back into the room while she is sobbing into my shoulder and says that I have to choose; either to sedate her or to let their child life specialist talk her into allowing them to do the procedure while she is awake. I'm sorry but why had no one called a child life specialist before they terrorized her 3 times? I was like.. "she is scared of you and everyone else wearing scrubs, that's not going to change because a lady with a smile and some toys comes to play with her". I chose to have them sedate her, I felt like it was the only choice. The resident didn't like it, he tried to talk me out of it by listing all of the dangers involved. He pointed out the machine they have for reviving her should her heart stop or should she stop breathing. I took a deep breath, said a prayer and repeated my wish. In the end they got it done, and she woke up a different girl. Since the eyelashes were out of her eye and they had put some numbing drops in she was finally out of pain (6 hours of pain and no food or drink would make anyone mad) Ara was like a different kid. All of the nurses loved her and they fed her Popsicles and let her waste their ace bandage stuff by making bracelets.

Cornia abrasions are particularly painful because the eye has so many nerve endings but they do heal very quickly. In a 3 year old they said to expect a full recovery in 2 days. We have some sort of goop that I get to "try" to put IN her eye 4 times a day to help ward off infection and motrin for the pain. Other than that she is as good as new. Oh yeah and I worked out today.

The end.