Have you ever had to watch a little girl weep copious tears of pain but been helpless to do anything to bring her any relief? If you haven't, I hope you never experience it. Last night, my daughter Juwura had a domestic accident/mishap in the kitchen. She had struck a match to light the cooker but a tiny burning tinder flew off the matchstick right into her right eye. I ran into the kitchen as soon as I heard her tiny shriek and it was a moment of abject chaos and fear as she jumped up and down, crying and rubbing her eyes. I hurried her into the bathroom and began to bath her eyes with water but it didn't seem to relieve her pain.
I made her lie down with her eyes shut but she kept twitching and weeping in pain. I wasn't sure what to do and wasn't sure if I could take her to the hospital because of the strict curfew. I knew though, that I couldn't watch her like that without a solution and after a minute or two of total disorientation, I realized I could to call her doctor for help. She picked up at the first ring and advised that we continued to run water on the eye for about 30 minutes. After about 10 minutes of her continuous squirming, jerking and crying, I was fairly relieved to see a tiny dark speck wash out of the eye.
She became a little calmer after that but wouldn't stop crying. The doctor put me through on how to do a little check on the eye and I discovered a blister beneath her lower eye lid. Apparent, the burning tinder had been lodged there. After a few more minutes of water therapy and a pain killer, she finally quietened and dropped off into an exhausted sleep. It was ages before I was able to calm down and catch some sleep. It wasn't very peaceful though, as I had several disjointed and terrible dreams about fires and burning eyes. I woke up way too early and almost couldn't wait for her to get up too. When she finally woke up and smiled at me, I felt like a huge weight was lifted off my chest. I just held her close, feeling very relieved and proceeded to give her a lecture about matches and fires. She still feels a bit achy around the eye but she is doing pretty good at the moment. Phew!