Hyphema

July 19, 2009 we were at Andy's parents house visiting with family. His sisters and brother were in town with their families for their annual summer visit to Utah. We took Dallas with us and tied him up in the back yard with a long bungee cord. The cousins were out playing with him for a while and having a great time. Kayman and I went to check on them and I noticed that Syd had tied his cord up pretty short so he couldn't move around a whole lot. I set Kayman down and fixed the cord so Dallas wouldn't go nuts.

As I was fixing the cord Syd and her cousin disappeared from the back yard and the gate was open. I went out front to find them playing in my sister in law's car and was nervous they would get hurt. I got them out of the car and when I turned around, Dallas was out front. I thought to myself, "How did he get up here?" I went around to the back yard and saw Kayman on the ground crying and Dallas had broken free from the bungee cord. My sister in law grabbed Kayman as I was coming around the corner, so I tied up Dallas again and went to talk to the girls about the dangers of playing in the car.

Andy was holding Kayman and he wasn't calming down. If you don't know Kayman, here's a little about him...he cries a lot, and something very minor can cause quite the tantrum from him...a little frustration sends him into raging fits that turn the heads of strangers who probably think I am hurting him...his shrieks are pretty regular and intense...but once he gets some comfort he usually calms down pretty quick. Once I noticed that he wasn't calming down I went to see him. His forehead was covered in welts and my mother in law told me his eye had a little blood on it when they brought him in.

We got him a popsicle to calm him a bit and when he stopped crying and opened his eyes we started inspecting them. They looked okay at first, just a little red, then after a few minutes his right eye started filling with blood. Andy and his dad and brother gave him a blessing and we rushed him to Primary Children's Emergency room. By the time we got there, the blood was up to his pupil. This picture was taken in the ER waiting room. As you can see, Kayman is in good spirits by this point. It took about an hour to get a room.

We were seen by the nurse, then the Doctor on call, then her boss who told us she thought it was a hyphema, but she was going to call Ophthalmology to check it out and in the mean time not to let him touch it. I asked what could happen if he touched it. She told me that if he has high pressure, rubbing his eye could cause a ruptured globe and that it could fall out. That was a little scary to hear, and we didn't let Kayman touch his eye at all after that. She also told us not to let him eat any more of the crackers and juice he had because if they need to admit him and perform eye surgery, he shouldn't have anything in his stomach. Ah! Eye surgery on a 20 month old?! By now it was bout 9:00 p.m. (this happened at 5:30) and Kayman missed dinner and was starving!

Ophthalmology made it down shortly after and confirmed the hyphema. He called it an "8 ball" because he whole eye was black by this point, as you can see below.

The Dr. took his eye pressure and had a hard time hiding how nervous the results made him. He said "Ooh, I hope that isn't right." He took it again 2 more times and the same result each time. Normal eye pressure is about 15, and Kayman's was at 44. We were told that if the pressure didn't go down by 8 a.m. he would need surgery. The high pressure can cause glaucoma and blindness. Kayman was prescribed 3 eye drops (one for the pressure, one to dilate it so it can heal, and a steroid) and an oral medication to decrease the pressure in his eye. We finally got out of there at midnight. We were to have Kayman sleep upright so the blood could drain from his eye and return to the ophthalmology department first thing in the morning.

Kayman slept fine and by the morning, the blood had drained from his eye, but his color was way off. His eye was green!

The Dr. couldn't see anything in his eye because it was still filled with blood. His eye basically got squished in half and ruptured all the blood vessels inside. We were told to continue the medications and not let Kayman do anything, he was basically on bed rest. (yea right! Have you seen the energy this kid has?!) Any kind of trauma could cause the bleeding to start again and cause blindness. The Dr. stressed that this is a very serious injury and that it is very important that he be as still as possible. We were to return in 2 days to check again. That appt. went fine and not much changed. It was healing, but he still couldn't tell if there was any damage to Kayman's vision.

I took Kayman in today for another appt. and the Dr. said his vision should be just fine. We can stop giving him the drops and he can resume normal activity! Yay! Kayman has nearly made a full recovery. We are thrilled that his vision is okay, as far as they can tell at this point. They can't find any damage to the optical nerve. My only concern was the fact that his eye is still so dilated and he has been off the dilating drops for a week. The Dr. said that sometimes it can take a few weeks for the drops to wear off. Hopefully that is the case. The other reason that it may be dilated is if the pupil muscle was torn or damaged during the accident. If that is the case, this is permanent. Here is my little man today. He looks so much better and is back to his old self! Hopefully the pupil will go back to normal, but we are just so grateful that he didn't need surgery and that his vision is okay. We have truly been blessed. This accident was so bizarre, and we are very grateful that more damage wasn't caused by this. Love you buddy!