Camden's Eye

This morning the boys were cleaning up the dishes after making casadillas. Isaac picked up the hot pan off the stove and was turning to put it in the sink, when Camden turned around at the same time and the edge of the hot pan caught Camden right in the eye. At first, while I was running his face under cold water, I assumed that the pan had burned his eye lid or the skin near his eye. But we couldn't find any marks on his skin. We opened his eye, and Michael and I both freaked out just a bit when we saw that his eye looked a little cloudy. (The hot pan had touched his eye, but had not touched the skin anywhere around his eye at all -- what are the chances of that?).

We took him to the ER at Children's Hospital, where they roomed us in record time (which told me that they also thought it was really serious), and the doctors checked him out right away. When the nurse opened his eye, and it was more clouded than it had been before, I thought that maybe he would lose sight in that eye. But when the doctors came in they held up fingers and asked how many he could see, and he answered correctly. He said it was blurry, but that was a really good sign (I was thinking, "Oh good, maybe only partial blindness in one eye."  And I did look it up -- apparently the DMV will still allow people to have a driver's license if they are blind in one eye as long as they can still see well with the other eye). They tried to have Camden do an eye exam, but after trying on two different charts they gave up -- he was so distraught that he said he couldn't even see the letter charts at all. They have him some eye drops that helped numb the eye, and loaded him up with some other pain killers too, which helped him calm down. 

The opthomalagist happened to be right across the way from the ER, and they caught him before he left for the day. He checked it out, and confirmed that Camden did have a corneal burn. But he said he'll be just fine. They gave him an eye patch that holds his kid closed, which they said would help to heal the cornea over the weekend. And we went home with some eye drops and more medicine because they said this is a really painful burn. The opthomologist told us to come see him early Monday morning, and he will "patch him up" (don't know what that will entail). But he said he may not need the patch anymore after Monday. And that once this heals back up there will be no permanent damage. What a relief!  

Camden slept fitfully for quite a while after getting home. He insisted that he couldn't open his good eye because it made it harder to keep his other eye closed under the patch, so when he was awake he still had both his eyes closed. Once he woke up, we took off the patch, gave him they eye drops & medicine, and put a new patch on. He was pretty weepy, but the medicine must work fast because he perked up pretty quickly afterward.  Then he wanted to get up and move around. So Nana took him along as she walked to the mailbox. He continued to keep his eyes closed the whole time that they walked, feeling his way around as if he was blind. He still wanted to go walking some more, so I took him on a little longer walk. He walked blindly for most of it, then suddenly decided to try out opening his other eye. He got used to it after a while, and since then he's been getting around just fine on his own. He even told me he thought he'd be well enough to go to church tomorrow. I asked him what he will tell people when they ask what happened, and he decided to tell them he's a pirate now. 

***** Update:

So, it's been 6 days since Camden's burn, and I can't believe how quickly he has healed.  On Monday morning we went back to the opthalmologist at Children's Hospital (the same one who told us on Saturday that Camden's cornea would likely be about 75% healed by Monday morning if he wore the patch over the weekend).  He put in some special eye drops with color in them, and he said that the drops will leave little colored marks to show the parts of the eye that are not yet healed all the way, and there were no marks on Camden's eye.  It was 100% healed by Monday morning.  The doctor said Camden has a good immune system.  (And we know it also helped that he had a priesthood blessing).  He didn't need to keep wearing the eye patch or keep taking all the extra medications, just needed to finish the round of the antibiotic eye drops he was on, which he will finish up with tonight.  A day or two after he got the patch off, Camden told me that it wasn't blurry at all anymore and he could see like normal.  So we are really thankful for our blessings!