03/27/09 A Close Call

Gabe and some neighborhood kids made the poor choice to run around the neighborhood and shoot at each other with pellet guns! Gabe got hit in the eye and came in the house with watering eyes telling me that his vision was blurry. When the white of his eye started getting red, I knew we'd better go to the doctor. Urgent care wasted no time sending us to the ER at Mary Bridge Children's Hospital.

Gabe and I spent hours in the emergency room hoping that his eyesight wouldn't be permanently gone. Gabe was just getting over a cold, and couldn't breathe through his nose, so when they gave him an IV with medicine to put him to sleep, he almost stopped breathing! They gave him medicine to wake him back up, put him on oxygen and a heart monitor, and he was fine as they continued to run tests. They did an MRI to determine if there was anything left in his eye -- no. They continuously monitored the bleeding inside his eye to see if it was disapating -- it was.

Gabe spent most of his time asleep as it was the middle of the night by this point. When we were finally released from the hospital, Gabe had to wear an eye patch to school for a week. I think he sort of enjoyed everyone calling him a pirate! We had disposable patches, so he would draw weird eyes on the outside each day.

It took an urgent care visit, an emergency room visit, six eye doctor/specialists visits, four prescriptions, and eight weeks of healing, but his eyesight is back. He's been released to full activity again! Many friends and family fasted and prayed for him, and we are so thankful that Gabe's vision is back. The doctors think we are very lucky, but we know we are very blessed! Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers!