What the hell just happened?! The ending result is a best case scenario, but getting here felt like we were thrown in a fire, taken out, put into a tumble dryer, shaken up real good, and then spit out on the floor like an old piece of gum.

You already know the part where Stevie had eye surgery and went home. But what happened after that is where it goes off the rails a bit. Everything seemed to be going along as expected – tough recovery for several hours and then he started seeming more and more like his old self as the night went on. He went to bed at his normal time and we checked on him every 30 minutes or so.

Paul and I finally headed to bed around midnight, and as I was getting ready for bed, I shined my phone on Stevie’s face just to check it out. I thought for sure my eyes were playing tricks on me in the dark when I noticed some gunk coming out of his eyes. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was blood dripping down.

Well. That’s never a good thing.

Paul and I cleaned him up the best we could but the bleeding kept getting worse and worse. So I called our ophthalmologist’s emergency line to see what we should do. With no return call, we decided to head to the emergency room.

By the time we got there, Stevie’s face looked like something out of a horror film. Blood dripping down his cheeks and blood clots forming over his eye. I will be honest, I did not handle the sight of this very well. Almost passed out like an freakin amateur.

We stayed in the ER for awhile discussing different options until they moved us up to the 6th floor to continue waiting for a call back from our ophthalmologist. We saw an ophthalmologist who was on staff, but she wasn’t the most helpful person in the world. At least she had the genius idea to put a patch on to stop the bleeding. And after 12 hours at the hospital, that finally happened. I decided this would be a good time to take off my blood-soaked sweatshirt, only to be immediately barfed on. Oh well.

At this point, the only way the ophthalmologist could see us was if we went to his clinic in Arcadia. So we got discharged from the hospital with Massive Head Wound Harry to go see the doc. He told us he didn’t know why Stevie’s eye was bleeding like this and we’d need to go back to the hospital for a second emergency eyelid surgery.

Shit.

So at 3pm our effed up day was kind of just beginning.

Stevie had HAD IT by this point. So everything we had to do with him was a fight. We literally had to pin him to the bed while they changed his bandages. And restrain him against my body while they put in another IV. He was screaming and thrashing and it was another memory that I can push down into the depths. Completely awful.

Paul and I made some adjustments to his bandages for one last fight and then Stevie finally passed out from sheer exhaustion. The nurses came and told us it was about time to go up for surgery, and Paul looked at me and Stevie snuggling and said “I think the eye stopped bleeding”. I could see that it had definitely slowed down, but I was doubtful that it had stopped. So we headed to the ER, got Stevie some more of that “happy juice” and we asked the opthamalogist to take one last look before putting Stevie under anesthesia again. So he took off the bandages and lo and behold! No bleeding. We monitored it for about half an hour and no bleeding.

We all kind of looked at each other in disbelief and the doc said “Well, no surgery then. You can go home.”

I think I just sat there for awhile, not able to totally process what had happened the last 30+ hours. It was obviously the best thing we could hope for because anesthesia for the 9th time on a 4 year old is just scary. But WHAT?!!! I mean seriously?!! After TWENTY HOURS of non stop bleeding, it just STOPPED all of a sudden with no explanation why it started or why it ended. (I think Paul and I must have done a really amazing job putting that pressure bandage on, but that’s just my humble opinion.)

And I guess better late than never.

Holy balls.

Now we wait to be discharged. To go eat for the first time today. To go change icky pillowcases at home.  And to enjoy what we are hoping is nothing but a peaceful night.

I’ll keep you posted.