Wow...What A Week!!!

Okay, for those of you who don’t know, I had quite an adventurous week with my son. Let me tell you what happened.

This past Monday, I was sitting on my balcony with a friend when my cell phone rang. It was my mom. Now, it was about 9:00 at night and while it is not unusual for my mother call me, something in my chest tightened when I saw the name on my cell. She told me that my son, Garrett, was in the ER. A stick had hit him in the left eye and, at that moment, he couldn’t see out of it. I asked if I needed to come home and she said that would probably be a good idea. I hung up the phone and felt like I was going to pass out. My hands were clammy, my throat was tight, and my head was swimming. I tried to talk and that was a completely unsuccessful venture. As soon as I opened my mouth, the tears began to flow. This was one of those times that I questioned my abilities as a parent and began beating myself up (again) for not still living in Abilene.

Let me detour for a moment and say that this was not the first time Garrett had had an accident and I was not there. When I lived in Ohio, he fell and broke his arm. I felt useless. I questioned every decision I had ever made and thoroughly kicked my own ass. At any rate, it was a bit better this time around, knowing that I lived only three hours away as opposed to several states away.

So, back to the story at hand. At around 9:45, I was finally able to compose myself enough to get in the car and drive to Abilene. My parents called and told me that Garrett was about to go into surgery and they would let me know when he was out. I drove faster. Around midnight they called and said that he had gotten very, very lucky. The stick had, in fact, not hit him in the eye. Instead, it had hit him about half an inch below the eye. There was no permanent damage to his eye. During the operation, the doctor found that there was blood in his eye, but said that would go away with medication. They put one little stitch actually in his eye and four stitches on his cheek. He has been to the doctor twice since the hospital visit and has been told that he is healing as he should. His eye is still very swollen and bloodshot, and his pupil is dilated from the medication, but he is able to move about with his daily business.

Now that you know that everything is fine, let me tell you what actually happened to his face. Apparently, Garrett was playing with one of his friends in his neighborhood. The two boys were sitting on a bench in the backyard. The older brother of Garrett’s friend was, for some reason, beating a stick against a tree when the stick broke and (you guessed it) hit my son just below the eye. The boy that was playing with the stick freaked out. He scooped Garrett up and ran to his house. When my ex-wife answered the door, the poor kid was standing there, holding Garrett, and crying like crazy. It was a total freak accident. No one blames this guy.

I know that this will come as a complete surprise to absolutely no one, but I am not the most spiritual person on the planet. I have some issues with religion and church, but I can promise you that many, many prayers were answered this week. Thanks to everyone who kept the little guy in your thoughts and prayers. He is going to be fine.