Shot in the Eye

In September, Cooper began getting some straight images in his line of vision. He would see little white or pink flashes, or other times he would get shapes. Always interesting like, pink circles that would slowly recede, or red squares, or blue rectangles. This began with it happening a few times over the course of two weeks, and then it crept up in intensity to where it was numerous times a day. 

I took him to see an optometrist after the first few times, and his eye exam was good. A few weeks later, since it had become a regular occurence, I took him back to the optometrist for another visit. Again he checked his eyes and he was pleased with all that he saw. We were lined up to come back for a peripheral vision check in a few days. 

Then something happened that caused us to go back to the optometrist sooner. Actually, it began with a trip to the emergency room at the hospital.

We had put some garbage in our van to go to the dump, and in this were some old airsoft guns. These are guns that boys play with and they use plastic bbs. Our boys are only *ever* allowed to use them if they wear full body gear and goggles. And the only ones allowed to use them are over the age of 10. Plus, they can't use them anywhere except restricted areas, due to the safety of the other children. So they usually go to this place they call Sniper's Point.

This day we were taking these old toys to the dump and the guns were supposed to be empty. But this was not true. There was one bullet loaded in one gun. There was a terribly unfortunate accident and Cooper got shot at pretty close range - under 3 feet.

It was really very frightening and we rushed him to the emergency room. His eye was patched and ointment put in and we were sent home for the weekend. On Monday, I took him to the optometrist, who did a thorough eye exam. His vision had dropped to 20/40 from 20/20. He could not do a real check into the eye because there was blood in the iris, plus inside the eye itself. He did kind of freak me out when he asked me if we had the bullet? No, why? Because we need to know it is not in the eye. Ick! That had not even occurred to me! Upon examination he was able to reassure us that the eye had not been pierced.

He gave us a prescription for two kinds of medications, and we were to come back in a couple days. One medicine basically put his eye in a coma for the week to help it to heal, and the other was to heal the wound.

Obviously, Cooper's eye was extremely painful and he could not handle any light, whatsoever, in either eye. The optometrist gave Cooper some dark glasses to wear for the week. When we came back to see him a couple of days later, he was able to tell us that Cooper's vision had improved to the 20/30 line.

This is Cooper's eye as it was recovering over the week. Still angry red and very light sensitive, but improving! By the end of two weeks his vision was back to normal and his eye totally healed. We are so very thankful to God because though he got an immediate blood spot in the lower half of his iris, he has recovered. 

The one great thing that came of this was that he was seen by an ophthalmologist during this event. Given that we live in a small town we do not have specialists in our town. They come to our town once a month or we have to travel to them. As it turned out, while Cooper was recovering from his eye injury, the ophthalmologist who pops into town monthly was here. Our optometrist called us in so that he could have a look at him. He was satisfied by the recovery, but he was also able to reassure me with regard to the strange visual auras that Cooper has experienced.

He did tell me that the sporadic nausea that Cooper had had about four times through the month, plus the almost non-existent headaches that he had also had at other times than the auras or nausea, could indeed be related to each other. None of the three things were really happening at the same time, and except for the visual happenings, nothing was enough to really notice. So that reassured me. We still have an appointment in the Big City to have his eyes and brain examined thoroughly, for which I am thankful, but I am quite reassured because he has not had these occurances in at least a month.

So given all that Cooper had been through in that two week period, I felt that a "Date" was in order. We headed out of the optometrist's office and headed to my favourite coffee shop: Tim Horton's.

 Cooper could not sit still. Seriously, he was wiggling and jiggling, and moving and grooving. He was looking this way and that way, checking out the customers and just generally *not still*. I finally asked him if he had "ants in your pants?" He giggled and said:

"I'm Just So Happy!"

Having a coffee date with mum, where usually we just drive through. This was the first time that I had actually taken him inside. And he was just so stinking happy! *smile* Shows you how important something as a little coffee date are!

 Not Leaving a Drop Behind!

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