Ouch!!!

As has been my pattern, here I am catching up again. The end of the semester was it’s usual whirlwind with things only now setting down.

The last week plus has been an interesting one to say the least. With my final coming up and a project due, i was fairly stressed. Took a few days off of work to study and get away from everything. If that had been all that I did though, things might have been easier. I play in a softball league very year and a week ago was the first game. I was pretty much done with all my reviews so was looking forward to getting out of the house for a few hours. Bad idea. It was a pretty sunny day and we without sunglasses. They put me in might field and first up was a strong batter. Crack and in my general direction game a long, hard fly ball. I was running to the back to my right and with the guidance of the left fielder, got in perfect position to make the cach. Only then at the last second, I lost it in the sun. It didn’t remain lost for long though as I felt a crushing blow at my right eye. I went down in a heap although never lost conciousness. I knew immediately what had happened and even thought it strange that i thought it would hurt more. Shock is a good thing.
After a bit, I got up and with the help of some of my teammates, walked off the field. They had called 911 which I initially balked at but couldn’t disagree with being safe rather than sorry. They got there quickly and no trauma beyond some serious cuts to the eyebrow. I’ll omit the details for the squemish. They wrapped me up and I went with L to the ER. I was glad she and the girls didn’t see what happened; they got there as people were running out to check on me.

The wait at the ER was horrible. Initially while in the waiting room, I decided to go into the bathroom to see how I looked. I had noticed on the drive there that I was covered in blood and the mirror confirmed it. Scalp wounds tend to do that so I spent about 5 minutes cleaning up as best I could. When the ER doc finally saw me, he didn’t see any problems beyond needing stitches (not that he did much checking). Instead of letting him do it though, I learned that they had a plastic surgeon on duty so opted for that. Much waiting ensued but he finally got there and 14 stitches later, was done. I thougth it appropriate that I heard America’s Funniest Home Videos was on in the background.

I got home about 8:30 that night and got a chance to look at the damage. My first thought was to say ‘Cut me Mick" as my almost swollen eye reminded me of Rocky. There was no way I could take a final like that so emailed my prof then began some icing. It took a couple of days but the swelling dropped and suprisingly I never got a "black eye." Thurday night though I discovered something disturbing. My eye was still dilated. On the whole, my vision was fine but called my doctor the next morning to be sure. He immediately made an appt. for me to see an opthamologist that morning. I had to rush to make it there in time but the good news was no brain or pressure issues. It looks like the muscles in the iris are damaged. he game me some oral and eyedrop steroids. Now it is a waiting game. he wouldn’t commit one way or the other about whether he thought it would heal. He said itwas too early for that. But in the worst case since he verified that my vision was not impaired that it wasn’t something to worry about.

I’ll keep you posted.