Arrrrrrr

My poor little pirate. Ei woke up this morning clutching his eye and screaming that it hurt. I thought something was in it, so I took him in the bathroom and tried to rinse it out. He was crying pretty hard, so I assumed that his tears would wash it out. He stopped crying, so I put it behind me. About 20 minutes later he started again. I figured that he was just trying to get attention, so I hugged him, gave him a cold washcloth to hold over his eye, and sent him on his way. When he started crying again about 20 minutes later, I got worried. So, I packed up all our things (we were in Chattanooga) and decided to head for home. We got as far as Athens when I exited and decided to look for a CVS clinic or something because he was still screaming about every 15 or 20 minutes. I didn't find one, so we got back on the road and hurried to the CVS Minute Clinic in Knoxville. I assumed he had pink eye because his little eye was so read and swollen. The nurse practitioner there looked at his eye and said that there was no infection (thus, not pink eye) and that the color and swelling was due to his rubbing at it all day. He told me to take him to the pediatrician today. He didn't even charge me. I got really worried. Unexplained shooting pains in his eye? The nurse who didn't charge for his services but insisted we see a doctor today? All I could think was that it was a brain tumor. I got him in with our pediatrician right away. They dyed his eye green and then turned on a black light which showed a rather nasty scratch on his cornea. They washed out the green and put in some drops to numb it a bit and prevent infection, then they patched his eye and said to leave it that way until tomorrow. Then I have to bring him back for another check because the doc was concerned about the severity of the scratch. My poor boy. He told me tonight that he's scared because his eye might not ever heal up. Oh, how I wanted to rock him all night and assure him that everything will be okay.

Pay no attention to the hand prints all over the wall behind him. It's an illusion created by trick photography.