I woke this morning just early enough to do handover with our nurse, but I could already hear Mikaere grizzling. It was a rough morning, nothing would console him. We cancelled our morning appointments and hunkered in for some hardcore settling. At some point between the singing and the bouncing and the petting, I noticed that in Mikaere’s right eye there was a scratch. Literally, on the lens of his eye. Wtf.
Mikaere’s recently been able to reach his face with his little hands and usually he goes for his mouth (his aim is a bit shaky, sometimes he makes it, sometimes he doesn’t). I rang our CCN (our Community Care Nurse – our first port of call always) because wtf. Should I be concerned? Does he need drops? Will it heal? (Do lenses heal?!) I had no idea. I can talk to you all day long about bloods and metabolic process systems but eyes? I don’t know very much about eyes.
Essentially our nurse said you don’t mess around with eyes, so we should go to the urgent eye clinic, but we needed a gp referral letter first.
Blah. We don’t go into our gps office (exposing Mikaere to sick groups of people in waiting rooms is something we try to avoid) so I called to organise a home visit. Except, after speaking to the oncall gp (a delightful Dr Bailey) he said he didn’t need to come out to verify there was a scratch on his eye. If I said there was a scratch there was a scratch, so without much drama he emailed us a referral letter (this is why he is considered delightful – it’s so nice when our team makes things easy for us).
Armed with our letter we made it down to the hospital… only to find out that the morning clinic had ended five minutes earlier and we’d have to wait for the afternoon clinic an hour and a half away. Womp.
Also, Mikaere needed a feed and I’d forgotten the hot water in my rush to get out the door (fail). So, back to the car with all his gear and we drove through the nearest McDonalds Drive through where I got a tea with no teabag (because apparently they won’t sell you hot water – what a day). Feed and meds done in the car park, drove back to the hospital and back into the eye clinic. Eye clinics are my favourite – the people at eye clinics aren’t sick with nasty chest infections. You can’t catch eye problems just by being in the same room. Look at all the otherwise healthy people with no respiratory problems! Best waiting room ever.
I spent the next 45 minutes trying to keep Mikaere awake (which was fun for everyone) and then we saw the doctor. She did her magic with some eye drops (top tip, pull the bottom eyelid away and let the drop fall in the well you’ve created – MUCH easier than trying from the top eyelid!!) and using her UV light the scratch light up like a neon line across his eyeball. (Again, wtf).
Essentially, The doctor said he had scratched his eyeball. Probably with his nails (!) and it probably hurt like a paper cut, but in his eye (!!). She said it would heal (thank goodness) but in the meantime she’d provide drops to make sure it didn’t infected and to keep his fingernails short.
What a day. So, we went home armed with drops and now I spend all day yanking Mikaere’s hands away from his eyes. Eye gouging. I still can’t believe it.
