Corneal Abrasion

Kyle wound up in the ER in the wee hours of the morning. His eye actually started bugging him the day before yesterday. By the time he got home from work last night his eyelid was swollen and his eye was red and killing him. I tried to convince him to let me take him to one of those urgent care clinics after dinner, but he was sure he could sleep it off and be fine by morning. Well that didn't happen. I woke up around 3AM to the sound of him taking a shower. Yes, he got cleaned up to go to the ER :) I really didn't think he should be driving with only one good eye, but we couldn't exactly leave Mallory at home alone and Kyle was in too much pain to wait the 20 to 30 min for my mom to come over.

At the hospital they gave him a numbing drop, diagnosed a corneal abrasion, gave Kyle a prescription for pain killers and told him to see an eye doctor ASAP. They also told him that sleep was actually the best way to help his eye heal. So Kyle stopped at a 24 hr pharmacy to fill the prescription and got home just as the numbing drop wore off. He took the pain killers and tried to sleep. I called the eye doctor first thing after they opened and made an appointment for him. Mallory and I drove him over there. Poor guy couldn't even see the big E on the eye chart! He has a pretty decent scratch on his cornea and several little defects under the cornea that are apparently caused by severe dryness.

From now on Kyle is not sleeping in his contacts - even if they are the day & night kind. He has a follow up appointment with they eye doctor on Friday and a prescription for a bunch of eye drops to use several times a day. It may take a couple of days, but his vision is supposed to fully recover. The eye drops ought to be interesting - for a contact wearer, Kyle is squeamish about his eyes ;)