The Eyes Have It

Here’s the thing:

This dog may look sweet and innocent and totally harmless…

But make no mistake, she’s 6 ½ pounds of fur-covered steel.  

And you might think she looks hilarious when she’s all splayed out on her back like this:

But if you think that gives you free license to tickle her belly with reckless abandon, you better be prepared for an explosion of paws and nails and epic barking.

This, I can assure you, is information Opie wishes he had last Monday night when he tried the aforementioned tickling and she accidentally scratched him right across the eye.

“Is it bleeding?” He asked.

I really wanted to be helpful and reassuring but it was difficult because, as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I  have a weird eye phobia type issue and I just knew that if I looked down into an eyeball scratched to bloody shreds, I’d never get over it.

This explains why my cursory examination revealed nothing.  It does not, however, explain why, when we went to the ER 6 hours later because Opie couldn’t open his eye without wanting to scream, the ER doctor also found nothing.  I mean, presumably he’s used to seeing disturbing anatomical issues.  And he had a huge light and magnifying glass. But the doc said Opie’s cornea was fine and he just had a little scratch on the inside of his eyelid.

Which made me a slightly unsympathetic (and suspicious that he was trying to upstage my poison ivy) when Opie spent the next 5 hours lying in bed with an icepack on his face, moaning.

So you can imagine how guilty I felt when we finally got in to the actual ophthalmologist and she went “Ohhhh.”

In case you’re wondering, this is NEVER the sound you want your doctor to make when she is examining you (or your husband). And it is certainly NOT the sound your doctor makes when there is nothing wrong with your eye.

“She got you good,” the ophthalmologist told Opie. Then she started talking about corneal abrasions and epithelial scarring and a bunch of other stuff that I can’t remember because I was focusing all my mental energy on not throwing up in the trashcan.

“Can we get some painkillers?” I finally muttered.

But she wouldn’t prescribe Opie any because, as she explained in excruciating detail, the best way to gauge the healing process is to see how much the pain is decreasing throughout the night.

And I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was really hoping for some painkillers for ME.

Anyway, we got a bunch of other prescriptions to avoid infection and scarring and headed home.

“I’m going to drop you off so you can get settled and rest,” I told Opie.  “Then I’m going to go pick up your prescriptions.”

“Sounds good,” he agreed.

“Then,” I said with deceptive calm. “I’m going to drive to the ER and punch that doctor in the face about 50 times.”

Opie seemed to think this was in the “overreaction” category. Especially when I added. “Then I’m going to kick him in the shins. Then I’m going to demand our money back because that was the worst freaking, piece of crap medical diagnosis, I’ve ever heard in my life.”

And for the sake of the PG nature of this blog let’s all just pretend I really said “freaking” and “crap.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.” Opie said.

And he’s probably right…but maybe that’s how it should work.

In any case, I didn’t go assault the ER doctor but only because I really didn’t have any spare time.  

After all, we had to put drops and this disgusting antibiotic goo in Opie’s eye every hour for the next 24 hours—even setting the alarm to go off at hour intervals throughout the night—and all this eye medicating involved a lot of crying, moaning, and shouts to the heavens for help. 

Which doesn’t even include Opie’s reaction.

But now, after a week of treatment and 3 more visits to the ophthalmologist, his eye is on the mend and should heal with no ill effects. So, in sum, the ER doctor may one day be hunted down and punched in the face, I am the worst eye nurse in the history of the universe, and dog tickling is a dangerous sport.