Don't Ever Play with Something that Resembles a Stick!

Don’t ever let your baby or toddler play with anything that resembles a stick. Even if your baby didn’t end up injuring himself/herself, your baby may end up injuring others or even yourself. That’s what Mommy learnt the hard way. And having a hurt eye is really no fun at all. So don’t risk it. It all began like this.

That evening, Mommy played with Juan Or after bringing him back from the babysitter’s house. What was the game? It was a game of hitting the wind chime. The wind chime was hung high up on the beam of the ceiling. And Mommy knows that Juan Or loves to hear the sound of the wind chime. A fretful Juan Or can easily be pacified by merely hearing the sound of the wind chime. So Mommy used a back-scratcher stick to hit the windchime. After demonstrating how it was done, Mommy gave Juan Or the back-scratcher stick for Juan Or to hit the wind chime. Mommy thought this was good practice for Juan Or to improve his hand-eye coordination. First few hits were not accurate, so Mommy held Juan Or’s hand to hit directly on the wind chime. After that, Juan Or tried himself and finally he hit the target. Then Juan Or started waving the back-scratcher stick wildly and the next thing Mommy knew was that the stick entered from the top corner of the gap between Mommy’s spectacles and right eye and it hit right onto Mommy’s eye!

(The back-scratcher stick and the wind chime.)

Mommy quickly snatched the stick from Juan Or, put him down and inspected the eye. No blood shot eye. Image was still clear. But blinking the eye caused a sensation like that of having something stuck in the eye. This sensation went on the whole night through. Mommy’s right eyelid swelled and became teary and watery and a bit red too. Mommy’s right nostril became blocked and runny as well because of the tears that flowed into the nose. Mommy just can’t help closing the right eye because keeping it open would require Mommy to blink the eye which results in the irritating sensation. And yet keeping one eye open and one eye close is tiring. So what other better thing to do than to just go to sleep and hope the swelling subsides the next day. Anyway, by then, Juan Or was already asleep, so Mommy went to sleep too.

(Oww.....can't help closing the eyes!)

The next day, however, the condition did not improve. Mommy decided not to go to work because Mommy could hardly keep the eyes open, let alone to drive to work. So Father-in-law drove Mommy to visit the doctor. After telling the doctor what happened, the doctor checked Mommy’s right eye. Using the torchlight, the doctor instructed Mommy to look up, look down, look left and then look right. Finally, the doctor said, “Your cornea is not scratched.” The moment Mommy heard this, Mommy felt relieved. “But your eyelid is. I’ll give you an eyedrop to apply once in every 4 hours, and some medicine for the swelling and pain. The eyedrop is the antibiotic to prevent infection. If the pain doesn’t go away by tomorrow evening, then come back to me again for checking and I’ll refer you to an ophthalmologist.”

After paying for the medical fee (RM35), Father-in-law and Mommy left the clinic. Back at home, Mommy applied the eyedrop and slept a lot – because the eyes felt better to be closed. Mommy can’t do much reading. Even at this time that Mommy is typing this posting, Mommy’s right eye has to close and from time to time, Mommy has to close both eyes to rest. Mommy’s right eye is wet all the time now because tears just flow uncontrollably. Mommy hopes things will be better by tomorrow.