You’ll shoot your eye out…

You might think this is going to be post about how I dislike movies that everyone else loves…  A Christmas Story, Princess Bride, Space Balls, etc, etc.  I actually finally saw the entirety of A Christmas Story at Christmas this year, and I was pretty bored. That is, however, a rant for another day.

Back to the matter at hand.  Friday night, my husband got dishwasher detergent in his eye.  I was sort of wondering how one manages that, but after going into the kitchen and looking at the splatter pattern, I don’t see how it didn’t get in my eye (and I was in the living room.)  It was everywhere.  Apparently when he flipped the cap (pointed down at the dishwasher) it semi-exploded.  I can’t even imagine how painful it is to have detergent in your eye.

By this point in my education I have had about a billion science labs. At the beginning of each course they make us watch a safety video explaining the use of the eye wash and then we have to take a test on it. What is an “eye wash” you might ask? Each lab, even in middle school,  is equipped with a piece of safety equipment that is like a specialized “water fountain” that dumps an insanely large amount of water in your eyes to flush out whatever blinding chemical you have gotten in them.   Teachers warn that it is very unpleasant if you ever have to have it done.

Having this drilled process into my head, when this chemical in the eye emergency arose I knew exactly what to do.  Poor husband just looked like he was in agony – not that anyone could blame him.  I looked at the back of the bottle and it said flush with water.  So, I set the kitchen timer on the microwave for 15 minutes and immediately began the eye wash.  At first I tried get him to put his face under the faucet in the kitchen sink.  This pretty much just got water up his nose (talk about adding insult to injury). Luckily our faucet is one of those that detaches so I turned it water fountain style and actually got the water in his eye this time.  I could tell it hurt, but he just trudged through the whole 15 minutes.

For my piece of mind, after the 15 minute eye wash I called our opthamologist’s on call technician, and she called the doctor.  They said we did the right thing and didn’t need to go to the emergency room since we flushed it.  Thank goodness, because there are few things that are less fun than the emergency room on a Saturday night.  By Sunday his eye was back to normal.  The whole experience was pretty scary…  you don’t want to take any chances with your eyes.