Our Son, "Eye-Sick"

Hey Everyone,

Below are some pictures of Isaac’s eye. We ended up taking him to the E.R. on Friday night (at the recommendation of a physician from children’s hospital who attends Grace Church). We were told that, since Isaac’s wound was so close to his eye, there could be complications.

He got the would by falling onto the corner of a hard plastic bin, or at least that’s what we think happened. He was playing in the other room, right before bed time, when Beth heard a thud and a cry. When Beth came into the room, Isaac was sitting next to the bin with blood pouring down his face. At first we weren’t sure if we needed to take him to the E.R., but finally decided that we should.

(This is what the wound looked like before we took Isaac in to the E.R. To be honest it usually looked worse than this, since the blood kept collecting all around his eye-lid.)

We got to the E.R. around 11:20 PM, and didn’t leave until almost 4:30 AM. In typical E.R. fashion, we kept having to hurry up and wait. Here’s a quick recap of our evening/morning…

• At 11:45 we had our pre-meeting with the nurse, who took down all of Isaac’s info and then sent us back to the waiting room. Adam and Renee Bailie came by and visited us for a little while, which was a great encouragement.



• At 12:45 we were called back to a bed, where a doctor came and looked at Isaac’s eye. The doctor said that Isaac definitely needed stitches, and that he (the doctor) also needed to see if any damage had been done to the eye. Apparently, he was concerned that Isaac may have punctured his tear ducts (which are right there), or scratched his cornea. In any case, the doctor confirmed our decision to come to the E.R., since he said that puncture wounds so close to the eye can be very dangerous.



• At 1:45 we were taken to another bed where Isaac would receive his stitches. This bed had the monitors and equipment the doctors needed to perform the procedure.



• At 2:45 the doctor and nurses administered a sedative to Isaac so that they would be able to work on his eye (with the stitches) without him interfering. They allowed me (Nathan) to stay in the room, and I watched as the doctor closed the wound with five stitches. Beth (who was having tons of contractions…which made us a little nervous) decided to go wait in the waiting room. The doctor also checked Isaac’s eye and noted that everything looked good (no punctured tear ducts or scratched corneas). He said it was a close call, but everything appeared to be fine. We are so thankful to the Lord for His goodness!



• At 3:45, Isaac started to really come out of his sedated state. He was pretty wigged-out (tired, incoherent, scared, and cranky)… but he pulled through okay.



• By 4:15 or so, they released us and we were on our way home. Actually, we were on our way to pick up Ashley from a friend’s house. We made it home by 4:45.

(Here's what Isaac looks like post-stitches. We now like to refer to him as "Scarface.")

So this morning we are in recovery mode… drinking lots of coffee and constantly reminding Isaac not to touch his stitches. Although the events of last night were not what we had planned, we are praising the Lord for His kindness to us and to our son.

Thanks for you prayers!
- Nate