Poke in the Dark

July 26, 2011 at12:30 a.m., he gave out the grin that I have seen so many times before. Yes, I knew what that grin meant. He said, "I am going to bed. Coming up?"

Sitting in the living room, I looked over at our college age daughter. Brittany, seemingly oblivious of her surroundings, her fingers were working overtime at frantic speed, texting on her phone. Then I look at the laptop in front of me, with thousands of email to go through. Oh how I have fallen behind online. Becoming harder and harder to keep up. "No, I need to get through some of my email. Then I will come to bed."

Looking away from her texting, Brittany replies, "Night dad."

Tim gave out that quick look that has became a familiar expression, trying to make me feel bad for being on the computer so much. But it doesn't work anymore. I am beyond that. Heck, I am now making pennies per hour online. I will go to bed when I am good and ready.

2 a.m., everything is shutdown; Brittany said that she planned on going to bed too.

I walk up the stairs to our room. Closing the door into darkness, I heard Tim wake up. Which he usually does when I go to bed somewhere between 2 and 3 a.m. Most of the time in this short frame of minutes when he has awoken; I hope to fall asleep before the loud snoring begins again. More than often, I am too awake when my head hits the pillow.

This night was no different than any other night. Or so I thought. I got into bed and leaned over for a sweet goodnight kiss. Then he does what all men want to do in a darken bedroom. Ladies you know what I am talking about. After all, it is animal instinct. He rolls over towards me…

I scream out in sheer excruciating pain. Flashes of lightening amongst a black background were all I could see with my right eye. It wasn't just a poke in the eye, it was fast and forceful. Not that it was meant to be, but he called me a baby and said that I poked him in the eye before. So now we were even. Tim said, "Your eye is fine! Go to sleep."

"No, I am not fine." I jumped out of bed and headed towards the bathroom. Hearing in the background, "Don't be a baby. Go back to bed. It is just a poke in the eye."

Looking into the mirror, I could hear Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice echo in my head. "I am the terminator!" In those few minutes, my eye was red. Not bloodshot red, but deep, bright, bloody red. The eyelid and underneath the eye was already swollen. I yelled at him that he really needed to see this. He refused to come to the bathroom. Acting like it was no big deal.

Brittany came upstairs to the bathroom, took one look at me and yelled out, "Dad, you need to see this!"

As she came nearer, I turned my head towards her. She stopped momentarily and did a queasy movement with her legs on the stairs. Brittany yells out, "Oh gross, mom! It is bulging out. Looks like a huge blood blister. Oh it is so gross!!!"

She finally coaxed him out to see the damage he had done. Then his attitude changed.

The resident doctor at the hospital showed Brittany (who took me there) the scratch above the iris and the large square shaped scratch (as he called it) on the white and clear part of the cornea. He gave me a bottle of eye drops to add every four hours and told me to make an appointment for Friday with the ophthalmologist. (Being Tuesday, this appointment would be a few days away.)

2:40 a.m., (fastest time in and out as an outpatient), got home with not only a painful eye, but now a headache. Delivered the news to my husband, then he went back to sleep. Needless to say, I couldn't sleep.

Every four hours, the drops were placed in my eye. The day progressed, along with the headache and my eye becoming more painful.

July 27, 2011 at 12:15 a.m., my eye was even more red and swollen with white puss. This time Brittany forced me back to the hospital. The workers (with the exception of the resident doctor) were the same people I had seen less than 24 hours prior. I found it funny when the familiar lady at the front desk asked me what was wrong. Then she looked directly at me and said, "Which eye?"

After the doctor consulted with the on call ophthalmologist (same one I hadn't made an appointment with), it was concluded that I was allergic to the eye drops. He told me to see the doctor ASAP and I was sent home with different eye drops along with ointment.

After seeing the ophthalmologist later that afternoon, he said that I had a large scratch and the cornea was torn, not scratched. He also told me that fingernails tend to tear the cornea and are the worse thing that can be poked into one's eye. Not always will the eye heal properly. The eye will become weaken. Ruptures could happen at any time throughout the person's remaining life. He could not give 100% guarantee that this would not happen to me, though assured me that my eye was on the mend.

One week later, my right eye is slightly bloodshot with the deepen red color only below the iris. The eye is no longer scratchy with a small amount of pain and continuing to heal.

The moral of this story is: when sharing a bed with another person, try not to get too close when he or she decides to roll over. Play it safe and wear goggles.