From one moment to the next...

For me, it is mind boggling how life altering things can happen from one moment to the next... in the blink of an eye even... You would think that something that would unravel the fabric your life, even for a finite period of time until things start looking up again, would be big... it would take some time in the making... it wouldn't happen "just like that", snap of the fingers, in a flash....

SNAP! Last Sunday, I was having a great Mother's Day! The boys are finally old enough to know it is Mother's Day and to prepare for it in their own way. If you think I am being silly, I think I deserve a Mother's Day (as do all mommies I know!) ... and yes I am looking forward to it... I am looking forward to the hand-made cards with the barely recognizable hearts (could just as easily been a rectangle!) and the 5 year old handwritting of "I love you mom!"... This Mother's Day, hubby joined in (very unlike him; if you have known me for a while, you will know hubby never gets a present, never surprises me with anything... ever!) and he had arranged for his mom to look after the boys for a couple of hours so we could see a (gasp!) a movie! In a real theater!

SNAP! Just minutes before we were due to leave, the boys were playing in their room when I hear the wail of doom, the kind of wail a child lets out only when in a lot of pain!!
Cody had thrust (accidentally) a toy water-gun in John's eye. I calmed him down, couldn't see anything was amiss, put some antibiotic drops in his eye and patched it up thinking it was nothing... Afterall, it had happened before and I knew the routine.

We didn't sleep all night that night, with John being very uncomfortable and scared... at the break of dawn, I grab John and take him to the ER where a resident saw us, couldn't do a full exam (didn't put any fluorescein in the eye), because John was so uncomfortable.. but didn't think to put numbing drops in the eye either... He put some (of the same) antiobiotic drops in his eye and patched it up and off we went.

We didn't sleep on Monday night either... again at the break of dawn we were at the hospital AGAIN... his eye was starting to swell and he was worse.
This time I was a little more forceful and a more experienced doctor came in, put the drops in to numb his eye and again we got some antibiotic drops and a patch...

Come Wednesday (today) his eye is now the size of a small lemon, bloodshot red and has some sort of green discharge (that the doctor insists are just normal eye secretions). This time I was VERY forceful, openly accused the doctor that he didn't listen to me yesterday when I told him his eye was worse and we got seen by the the big head doctor.

The cornea abrasion is "severe" and I didn't let them use the same antibiotic again since not only it didn't help, his eye is worse. So they used something else.
We will go back tomorrow... PLEASE PRAY HIS EYE IS BETTER!!!!!

Here comes the SNAP! part... his cornea was cloudy visibly. I am TERRIFIED he will lose eyesight or require surgery :( I can't even wrap my head around how something so insignificant could potentially be life altering for John... A million bad thoughts are running though my mind... worst case scenarios that leave me with frozen blood. It might be the lack of sleep, I can't think straight, all I can think of is... "they were just playing... it was an accident"...

Realistically, stupid accidents happen in the blink of an eye all the time... You stepped off the curb a second too early... You tripped going down the stairs... My friend's totally normal child is permanently disabled because he choked on his own phlegm and was without oxygen for a few minutes...

Things you can't prepare for, can't predict... All the medicine is locked away, all the chemicals too. I lock the door, there are bars in the windows. They are still in 5 point harnesses. I never put them in the front seat of the car. I never lose sight of them in the playground not even for a minute... SNAP! The toy water gun might cost my son his eye... it has already cost him a world of pain and discomfort, it has unravelled our day to day lives, my work and we live off this stuff...

I fear those SNAP! moments ... yes something GOOD might happen justl like that and for a lot of people it does... but I fear them because ALL good things in my life came about after a LOT of pain, a LOT of work, a LOT of heartache... nothing that matters was ever handed to me EVER, not a pregnancy, not a good job not even something as trivial as some "me" time... so yeah, I fear the SNAP! moments because as the Greeks say "The (bad) things that can happen in a moment, can't be done in a whole year".

Please PRAY for healing in John's eye without scaring. Please PRAY that when we go back tomorrow, his eye will be better!!!
Thank you!