Ashton turns 9

Ashton's 9th birthday was quite eventful. It was the day before Thanksgiving and we were up in Dallas with David's family to celebrate. He has been asking for a bb gun for awhile and was thrilled to finally get one. No I didn't read the label on the box about protective eye wear... hence the story you know is coming...

 I took him outside to watch him shoot and then set a water bottle up on the railing for him. He has used a bb gun a lot and I thought would be totally fine so I went back inside. 4 minutes later he came inside screaming holding his eye.

I didn't think there was any way that the bb had actually ricocheted so perfectly off the water bottle that it actually hit him in the eye ball. Well, David said, "Sam, quick come look at this!" and we got this picture and kind of freaked out a little bit. We quickly sent this picture to our doctor friends whom we use and abuse. Both of them said he needed to get into an ophthalmologist ASAP. 

 He spent about 3 hours of his birthday like this at the doctor's office getting checked, dilated and rechecked. 

Finally we got home and got to do his birthday cake.  The doctor's orders were for him not to do anything physical for the next 3 days. She ordered him to watch movies or play video games so he had zero risk of injuring it again. That was the only upside for Ashton.

We had 3 different drops going at different intervals throughout the day and it was a pain. David's dad made us an excel sheet so we could keep it all straight.

He walked around with his right eye dilated for two weeks after the injury because he was doing steroid drops to speed up the healing process. After the first week he acclimated to the lights and stopped complaining about the sun. Poor kid, it was quite the whirlwind but he handled it well.