Progress

The human body never ceases to amaze me. It's been just less than a week and Cooper's eye looks so much better! The swelling is completely gone and now it's just a rainbow of colors. I wish there had been as much healing on the inside vs the outside if for no other reason than this kid is going nuts having to lay completely low.

The opthamologist we saw this week (one of 3 that ended up seeing him during the same appt) gave us good news and bad news. The good news is no surgery--the fracture is small enough that it should heal itself. The bad news is that 1) there is some bleeding in the back of the eye that needs to resolve and 2) he had a massive sinus infection that showed up on the CT scan.

He has been fighting some congestion and a cough for 4 weeks and I talked to his pediatrician last week about it because I suspected it was a sinus infection. We were all set to start antibiotics this week if it hadn't improved when the injury happened. So, double whammy because he can't even blow his nose! The risk with nose blowing is that air (or in his case infected sinus junk) can travel up into his eye through the fracture and cause increased pressure. How do you not blow your nose when you have a sinus infection? So hard!! He is also still under strict guidelines not to increase his heart rate for the same reason--increased pressure in his eye could cause the bleeding to worsen and the whole orbit to give way.

Giving him Motrin over the weekend did not help the bleeding (sure wish I had known he had bleeding!). So now he is on a big gun antibiotic for the sinus infection and two different Rx eye drops for swelling and the bleeding. One of the drops fully dilates his pupil. So, he really looks freaky. Black and blue plus a dilated pupil. Nice!!

One of the drops is to be taken 4x/day, which means once at school. To make a very long story short, I had words with the "health clerk" at the school about the absurdity of their policy that a written note signed by the doc must accompany the Rx to be taken at school. The Rx is the note from the doc, you dumb people! It has his name, the doctor's name, the name of the med, the dosage, the number of times per day he is to take it, etc. I told them I would sign a waiver or whatever was necessary, but I was not faxing another form to this very busy doctor when he has already explicitly given instructions on what he wants Cooper to do. Our district does not use RNs in the school, so the health clerk cannot administer his meds. I finally resorted to just sneaking the bottle in his lunch and letting him go into the bathroom to do his eye drop. We feel like drug dealers! SO stupid!

It's so hard for Coop because he feels pretty normal right now, but yet he can do NOTHING. The kid is learning a hard life lesson. Every athlete sits out for injury at some point--hopefully this is it for him for a long while!!

Monday . . .

Tuesday . . .

Wednesday . . .