She-Who-Runs-With-a-Stick

Sunday evening, the daylight was fading and the kids were begging for just a few more minutes outside. They knew that Monday would be my first day at work, and their first day at daycare so they were trying to squeeze every last moment from the day. I gave them a few more minutes, and watched from the window as Gracie walked across the lawn with her "hiking stick", which she found in the field next to our house approximately 46 seconds after she arrived in Oklahoma.

It was an old, weathered bamboo stick with rough jagged ends and about a foot taller than Grace. As I watched her, I turned to Trevor and said something offhand, like "She's going to poke her eye out with that stick." Less than a minute later, Gracie came stumbling up the driveway with the stick in one hand, holding her eye with the other and screaming bloody murder. Gracie is my child that falls down and gets right back up running, so when she screams like that I know something is very wrong.

Nathan was frantically trying to tell me what happened as I grabbed Gracie and carried her into the house. Her eye was bleeding, she had blood all over her hands and I couldn't tell if it was coming just from her eye or from somewhere else as well. I got her on the kitchen counter and forced her hand away from the eye. At first glance I couldn't tell if she had damaged the eyeball, or if it was just superficial puncture wounds and small cuts to the skin. I quickly realized that all the blood was from her eye, and that she had not impaled herself on the stick.

As Trevor and I examined her, Nathan told us that Gracie was running with the stick and it got caught on the pavement. The stick stopped cold, but she kept going and jammed her eye on the end of it. I tried to calm her down as I cleaned the eye and put ice packs on it. I was convinced that we needed to go to the ER immediately, but Trevor was not so sure. He felt that the damage was purely superficial and that it would be a waste of time (not to mention money), and that she would be fine.

I went along with the plan after ascertaining that she could see out of the eye and move it around without any difficulty. She climbed into my lap and I held her for a long time with the ice pack held firmly in place. We called Mama on Skype and did a video call so that she could see Gracie's eye. She read Gracie a few books, and it really cheered her up. By the end of the books, she was feeling much better and I was glad that Mama had been able to take her mind off the injury.

When it was time for bed, I let Nathan and Grace sleep together so that Nathan could come get us if Gracie needed anything in the night. I went to bed, but couldn't sleep for worrying that I should have taken her to the ER. I had visions of her waking up blind in that eye, or of having some sort of swelling behind the eye that affected her brain function. I finally gave up and went into the living room to watch TV. I must have checked on her at least 8 times that night, and didn't get to sleep until about 2am.

Monday morning was my first day of work, and I was willing to go in late or call in so I could take her to the pediatrician, but Trevor volunteered. The doctor concurred with Trevor that all of the wounds were superficial and that there was no lasting damage. All Gracie could talk about that day was how she learned her lesson about running with sticks. Another quarter or half of an inch lower and she could have been permanently blinded or worse. If this kind of close call doesn't convince you that we are surrounded by angels, I don't know what does. Here are a few pictures of She-Who-Runs-With-A-Stick:

The night of the accident

The next morning

Monday evening