911 Call for Elizabeth!

Friday, June 15th was supposed to be a quiet night. Tim and Spencer were in the mountains on a campout and I had planned a quiet, rainy evening working on my blog and other projects--I had dinner done early and Liz and Gavin in the tub by 7 p.m.  (Pretty early for a summer night--even if it w)
as rainy!)

Elizabeth was having a little too much fun splashing water and I had asked her to stop getting the floor so wet--but when I left to get the towels, things took a turn for the worse when Levi got upset at Elizabeth for splashing soapy water at Gavin. So he grabbed the nearby Clorox Cleanup bottle (my bad) and squirted her face--the bleach got in her eye. I was so shocked, scared and angry.

Levi felt unjustly punished ("isn't soapy water just as bad for your eyes?") until he realized that the firefighters were coming to check Elizabeth and that we hoped she wasn't going to be blind...he began to cry-no sob- in agony, louder than his sister. To the point that Liz stopped crying and asked why Levi was crying, and I told her "because he is worried about your eyes, because he loves you so much."  That made an impression on her.

Meanwhile, I had decided on calling 911--with Liz screaming, Gavin and Levi too, and me trying to flush her eye--I couldn't really decipher the label on the cleaner for accident procedures. The firefighters were there in a few minutes--Liz wasn't even dressed yet. We slipped something on her and laid her on the bathroom counter where the 'rescue hero' flushed her eye with saline solution for 10 minutes. (It was more a flush, blink, rest, repeat process.) During the process and following it, they determined she was more than likely just fine, but that we should take her to urgent care for a professional checkup. 

Meanwhile, Elizabeth was becoming very enamoured with her rescuers! They really are rescue heroes--coming in with all their muscles and confidence and smiles and just taking over. She immediately calmed down--she would never have allowed me to run water over her eye like that! When it was determined she was ok, the mood was very light and they were friendly and chatty and full of praise for Elizabeth. They even let her sit inside the aid car and told her how the computer helped them find our house, etc. She was basking in the attention. :)   They also asked who sprayed the cleaner...Levi fessed up. They made him promise not to repeat that. I think he has definitely learned the hard way--hopefully all my kids have learned  from this experience not to spray any substance at anyone's face, EVER!

After the firefighters left, putting on their lights for a show and all, I was able to leave the three other kiddos at my dear neighbor, Myfa's home, while I took Elizabeth to the urgent care clinic. We checked in at 8 p.m. and finally saw a doctor at 9:30 or so--the doc put some yellow drops in her eye then turned out the lights and turned on a black light that made her eyes glow yellow--Freaky! The doc was looking for damage from the bleach--but she checked out just fine. At that point I was quite sure she was OK, but is a relief to know for sure.

Elizabeth was feeling so fine during this part of it, that the outing felt to her more like pampered time with Mom--like a Mommy/Daughter date. We colored together and chatted together, etc. And then she even got a sucker from the nurse.

On the way home, she asked me, what if I had squirted Levi with the bleach? Well, he would have had to have his eye flushed out and gone to the doctor (been possibly blinded...) She quickly replied, "Good thing I was the lucky one!"  You don't want to do that again, do you?(I asked, amused but a bit concerned.) "Oh NO!" she replied.