Metal In Your Eye
(is not a medical mystery)
Sometimes there really is something wrong. This is why we go to the doctor even when we don't see any visible cause for pain. It turns out that Max had a tiny spec of what appeared to two doctors to be metal. A tiny piece of metal was stuck in his cornea. Causing him all that pain. Boy do I not regret letting him have that Motrin two days in a row! I was tempted to say "Stick it out kid, there's nothing wrong with your eye..."But most moms know when their kids are faking it and when they're not. I knew he wasn't faking it when he told me he would like to rip his eyeball out because it hurt so much. The first doctor told us that tiny abrasions on the cornea can be terribly painful.
To see what was going on with his eye the first doctor had to put dye in Max's eye which would then be visible by ultra violet light. This was the coolest thing that happened to us today. Except that obviously it wasn't cool having a piece of dye covered paper poked into Max's eye. But we take our pleasure where we may.
The second doctor (the optometrist) put numbing drops in the kid's eye. That has got to be very freaky. The thought of a numb eyeball makes me flinch a little. Which Max did. Then more drops followed which made Max look insulted. The doctor was quite deft. Before we knew it the science fiction machinery was in front of his eye and a pair of the sharpest tweezers I've ever seen were navigating the surface of my boy's cornea. It took about three tries before the doctor got it. We could see it. Very tiny.
Then some ointment was unceremoniously slopped into his eye. This made him more squeamish than all the rest of the procedure. He hates weird textures of goop on his skin. But then it was over. OVER.
This was so much less like torture than taking him to get his nose cauterized the second time. That was pure agony. But this, this was not very much fun. Still, the metal spec is out of his eye and he's home enjoying sugar. Now this has become one more legend in the family history to retell over and over again.
The second doctor (the optometrist) put numbing drops in the kid's eye. That has got to be very freaky. The thought of a numb eyeball makes me flinch a little. Which Max did. Then more drops followed which made Max look insulted. The doctor was quite deft. Before we knew it the science fiction machinery was in front of his eye and a pair of the sharpest tweezers I've ever seen were navigating the surface of my boy's cornea. It took about three tries before the doctor got it. We could see it. Very tiny.
Then some ointment was unceremoniously slopped into his eye. This made him more squeamish than all the rest of the procedure. He hates weird textures of goop on his skin. But then it was over. OVER.
This was so much less like torture than taking him to get his nose cauterized the second time. That was pure agony. But this, this was not very much fun. Still, the metal spec is out of his eye and he's home enjoying sugar. Now this has become one more legend in the family history to retell over and over again.
Labels: family life, parenting, the kid