So, Ollie was climbing a tree at school and a piece of bark apparently flew into his eye. His teacher took him to the nurse, who flushed it with a few drops of saline. They thought he was better, so they sent him back to class, but in a little while his teacher brought him back to the nurse. Something was obviously still bothering his eye, so at that point the nurse gave us a call. Sara walked all three kids to the ER and I came home from work, got the car, and met them over there.

By the time they managed to get it all out, that poor boy had something poking his eyeball for over 5 hours. Naturally he picked up a corneal scratch somewhere along the way as well.

If you know me at all, you know that I absolutely cannot stand eye things. Evelyn and I had to face the wall while they were poking and prodding him in there (They flipped his eyelid over on a stick!! It was ghastly.), so I guess it was lucky it was Oliver, since he’s the one who likes to chase me around the house touching his eyeball just to squick me out.

The roughest part was after they finally removed whatever was in his eye and decided to rinse it with AN ENTIRE LITER OF SALINE. I mean, think of how much water is in a liter, and then imagine them dripping the entire thing DIRECTLY ONTO YOUR EYEBALL. It took a long time, and it was rough, but Ollie took it like a champ. We realized later that the reason so many people came into the room was because they had anticipated having to hold him down for it. It was that bad. But Ollie did great: it was obviously terrible, but he didn’t struggle, didn’t cry, and even joked with the nurse. He did hold my hand and sometimes shudder all over his body, but overall, he was very, very brave.

That’s Ollie for you.

Of course it was pouring rain and we got soaked to the bone running to the car (and Ollie’s umbrella turned inside out), so we were tired, wet, and freezing cold. Ollie couldn’t buckle his seat belt because his fingers were so stiff with cold. This was a rough night, man.

Afterwards Ollie chose a celebratory dinner of Five Guys and M&Ms for dessert (we denied his original request for “Valentine chocolate” for dinner and “more chocolate” for dessert).

“I don’t want to touch my eyeball anymore,” he said in a subdued voice after we finally got him into bed. So at least some good will come from all of this!

Now we have to put some kind of horrible, antibiotic eye goop in his eye 4 times a day. I watched Sara do it the first time, and it gave me the heebie jeebies just watching from across the room.

I already told her I’m waking her up in the morning to do it.