When we got home yesterday after our weekend away, Punky was restless so I thought we'd play outside for a bit. As soon as you mention it, she runs right to the door. She definitely her father's daughter. He's an outside guy, every chance he gets no matter the weather. Me? Not so much.
We took the bubbles and sidewalk chalk out with us. The first time she saw bubbles she really wasn't impressed but now she enjoys chasing them as they fly away. Her aunt brought her the chalk and taught her how to make lines all over the pavers. And of course, picking rocks remains at the top of the list of her outside entertainment favorites.
I'm not sure how long we were out there, but it was time to come in when I needed to pee. I held it as long as I could because I knew she would cry when we went back in the house. To my surprise, she was really cooperative and there were no tears. My good girl...
I tried to take the chalk out of her hand once we got in the door. No dice. Cue the tears. So, I ran to the bathroom and she was still hanging onto it when I went to take her shoes off a few minutes later. I bent down to open the velcro on her sneakers and she leaned in toward me. All of the sudden the world went black.
She must've swung her hand forward with the chalk still clenched in her fist. It landed dead center in my right eye and dropped me to the floor. Damn, I've never been poked in the eye like that. This chalk is about the diameter of a quarter and the end is nicely pointed from drawing on the sidewalk. And I think she pushed it an inch into my eyeball, or at least that's what it felt like.
The worst part is that it was my good eye, so I was left to rely on what little I could see through the one with the astigmatism as I fumbled around trying to figure out what to do to stop the blinding pain I was experiencing. I couldn't even open it at first, and when I did I wished I hadn't.
Blood red. My entire eye was blood red. And bulging. I had a bug eye. The iris, circular by nature, looked more like a dented oval. My heart started pounding in my chest. How the hell was I going to drive myself to the ER when I could only see through one bad eye? Visine! Yeah, visine. It takes the red out. Big misktake... The red remained and now my eye was on fire to boot.
So...I called my mom. I don't care how old I get, when I'm hurt or sick I want my mama. Her advice was a cold compress, which I was already doing, and to get to the ER if it didn't improve. Two hours of ice later, my eye almost returned to it's normal shape. The red dulled to a pretty shade of pink and I could stand to keep it open for more than a second at a time. By the time I went to bed, it was still very sore but about ninety percent better in the shape and color departments so I skipped the ER visit.
All appeared normal this morning but it felt like I took one hell of a punch to the eye. If it had to happen, I'm so glad it happened to me and not Punky. You can bet I'll be keeping a close eye on that chalk in the future, no pun intended.
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