Cole's eye: Our sad summer drama

A bad end to a good day...The Taylors, Ybarrandos and Woodruffs all set out for an overnight raft trip on the south fork of the Boise River early on Saturday, August 7. We had fabulous weather, great food and fun playing up until about dark thirty. We were all sitting around the fire when the boys (6 of them) started getting a little crazy with their fire sticks. I decided at this point that it was time to pull out the glow sticks. The boys had fun spinning them around making cool designs, then they got the idea to throw them up in the air. Two or three glow sticks were thrown up and Cole was preparing to toss his. As he looked up after tossing his glow stick, another glow stick came down striking him directly in the left eyeball (this throwing all took place in a matter of seconds). Cole immediately screamed and cried. After a few seconds he let us look in his eye. I saw what was later diagnosed as a hyphema. His pupil was oval shaped and there was blood in the lower part of his iris. Of course we had nothing to give him for pain. So I put a loose patch on it, iced it, rocked him, sang, did breathing exercises, and silently freaked out while he cried for over four hours. It was dark. We were in a river canyon and the only way out was rafting. The trip out was technical and we would likely put ourselves in more danger if we tried to raft out, so we had to stay through the night. Cole finally fell asleep at about two or three in the morning. I, of course, did not sleep much at all. At about 7:30 people woke up, started on breakfast and broke down camp. Cole slept through all of this and woke up about 9:30 as we were ready to leave. He said it still hurt, but not as bad as last night. He could not see out of the eye very well and it looked really bad. He was a trooper as we made our way out of the canyon in the freezing, cold weather.

We made it to the emergency room by about 2:30 on Sunday. He was diagnosed with a hyphema, which is blood in the anterior chamber of his eye caused by a tear. He was given an eye patch and put on bed rest. On Monday he saw an ophthalmologist who examined his eye thoroughly and went over the treatment. She informed us that in recent years past, the treatment was hospitalization with sedation for children, but that is no longer the case (insurance issues??). So at home we practiced bed rest, which meant that Cole had to be positioned between 30 and 90 degrees at all times and could not move. He could not lay flat or lean beyond 90 degrees or lay on his side or turn his head under any circumstances for risk of re-bleeding (and potential blindness). He could not read books or play games or anything that caused eye movement. So, we set him up on the couch, where he lived for seven days with me next to him constantly reminding him of the restrictions. He was able to watch TV because it was far away and there would be limited eye movement. The only time he was to leave the couch was to go to the bathroom or to the doctor, which we did three times that week and a total of seven that month. Cole had to wear an eye shield 24/7. He had to have four eye drops per day (which stung by the way). Of course Cole got a little tired of 14 hours of TV a day. One day he was really frustrated and said "I don't care about this. I have another eye." We explained to him that it would be better to have two working eyes. Cole was such a trooper. He was a very good patient. When the week was up, Cole was put on "low-activity", read: no running, skipping, jumping, hopping. I thought this would be worse, but Cole again amazed me. He continued to have to wear the eye shield and get drops and go to the doctor. Finally, after two weeks, Cole did not have to have anymore drops or eye shield, but had to wear sun glasses. The doctor informed us that Cole "would never be able to play contact sports for the rest of his life. And any other sports he would have to wear protective eye wear." This bit of info really freaked me out, but it turns out that "contact sports" to this ophthalmologist meant no karate, boxing, football, lacrosse. She said soccer and basketball would be okay with sports goggles. So we ordered some up--Cole picked electric blue. His vision was 20/160 initially...yikes, but improved to 20/25 about a month later. His pupil is no longer visibly oval, though the doctor said it's not perfectly round. Also the injured pupil is about 2mm larger than the other one. Cole will have to see an ophthalmologist yearly for the rest of his life because the drainage angle of his eye was altered due to scar tissue. The doctor will monitor him for signs of glaucoma.

This was such a scary, fluke accident, that luckily turned out to be mostly okay. Cole is so good at always remembering to wear sunglasses outside and put on his electric blue sports goggles for P.E., soccer, basketball, or just wearing around town. He's really proven to be a very responsible little man through this whole ordeal.