It’s January in Seattle and I’m dreaming of a tropical getaway. Maybe
it’s the freezing temperatures. Maybe it’s the dark days after the Christmas
lights come down and before the days start to get noticeably longer. Maybe it’s
that I’m buried under a mountain of work that I can’t seem to budge. Whatever
the reason, I’m fondly recalling last summer’s trip to Maui. I’m seeing beaches
and palm trees. I’m riding waves and dipping in turquoise pools. I’m tasting
fresh pineapple juice, feeling tropical breezes and smelling plumeria in my
mind. Ah, Hawaii. As my succinct nine-year-old son Chester put it, Best.
Vacation. Ever. The fact that it almost didn’t happen because of a balloon made
it that much more sweet.
~ Part I: Beware Balloons ~
Yes, it’s true – a balloon nearly ruined my Hawaiian vacation. Balloons
don’t really have a sinister reputation. You’re more likely to see them
bringing a festive atmosphere to a birthday party than lurking threateningly in
a dark alley. But I’m here to tell you, they’re dangerous – insidiously,
treacherously dangerous.
Allow me to set the scene… It was the last day of school, a beautiful,
sunny, early June day, only five days from departing on a long-anticipated trip
to Maui. It had been a busy spring and we were in the home stretch toward some
much-needed tropical relaxation. I dropped Chester off at school and took a
photo of him smiling broadly in the sunshine, proudly displaying his
interpretation of “Wacky Hair Day.” He was all set to attend a pool party
afterschool and then baseball practice later in the evening. Matt was in China so
I had a crazy “It takes a Village” plan pieced together, as I often do. A baseball
teammate’s dad would pick three of them up from school and they would be
allowed to crash an older sibling’s middle school pool party (so cool!) until I
picked them up for transport to the Pee Wee fields after I got off work. What
could go wrong?
Chester on the last day of 3rd grade - Wacky Hair Day
A balloon, that’s what. The assistant teacher in Chester’s 3rd
grade class gave each of the kids a balloon as a fun little end-of-the-year
treat. Why not, right? They’re balloons! They’re fun! They’re colorful! Yay,
balloons! Chester and his buddies piled into the back of his friend Nate’s car
and started playing with their balloons. Chester’s was apparently defective and
exploded with quite a bit of force even though it wasn’t inflated very full. It
was so fast and so bizarre that no one knows exactly what happened, other than the
balloon exploded, the boys screamed, and Chester started crying uncontrollably.
By the time Nate’s dad got them calmed down enough to take a look, the pupil of
Chester’s eye was bright red.
Nate’s dad is a smart guy and immediately assessed the situation as
being out of his “It takes a village” pay grade, which is exactly zero pay, and
rushed Chester back into the school office where the sight of his eye was
alarming enough to get the Head of School involved. I was in a meeting and
missed her calls for about 30 minutes. (Of course.) By the time I got back to
her, Chester had stopped crying, the pupil had turned from bright red to dark red,
and Nate’s dad had decided to proceed with the original plan with an impromptu
stop for milkshakes because everyone knows, when in doubt… milkshakes.
I raced to the pool party to find Chester swimming and Nate’s poor dad,
chasing him around trying to keep an eye on him; periodically holding up
fingers and asking “How many?” We all agreed much later that high doses of
chlorine were probably not the smartest post-eye injury idea, but it’s nearly
impossible to keep little boys out of a pool, especially one their friends are
in.
I loaded the three baseball boys up and made a quick stop at the fields
to drop off the two uninjured players before proceeding to Seattle Children’s
Hospital through rush hour traffic. I debated taking Chester to a closer urgent
care facility, but our pediatrician’s words echoed in my mind… “If he EVER
needs after-hours, emergency care, go to Children’s!” And this was not my first
emergency care rodeo with Mr. Chester. We’ve always gone to Children’s and
we’ve always had great experiences. I mean, as great as you can have when your
child is projectile vomiting every ten minutes or screaming in pain. So, I
fought through traffic for an hour and a half, all the while peeking in the
rearview mirror, trying to assess what was going on with Chester’s rapidly
changing eye.
Fast forward several hours to Children’s Hospital where Chester is
sobbing and not seeing out of his right eye. (There are so many things that are
terrifying to a parent. If anyone out there is keeping a master list, please
add hearing the following: “It’s all just white, Mom. I don’t see anything but
white.”) Finally, after various dye-drop and light-assisted examinations and
vision tests, a young doctor diagnosed Chester with a corneal abrasion and
prescribed an antibiotic ointment to be squished into his eye several times
each day. This didn’t seem right to me.
We got our prescription and headed home. It still didn’t seem right. I
started the arduous ointment routine and it didn’t feel any more right. I told
myself I was being crazy and paranoid, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling
that something was wrong. I woke up in the morning and crept into Chester’s
room. I sat on the edge of his bed and waited for his eyes to flutter open.
This has always been a favorite moment for me, from the very first time tiny
Chester was placed in my arms and his big blue eyes popped open and looked
right into mine. I waited for that moment and there it was… one beautiful,
familiar, blue eye. But the other was a ghastly, horror-show pool of blood. It
looked like a half-empty glass of blood. (Or half-full depending on how you
look at things, but I can assure you, in this case, it was definitely
half-empty.)
This is not Chester's eye, but this is exactly how his eye looked.
The plan for the day was changed, a sick-day was called in, and an
appointment with the doctor was made. Our pediatrician is an exceedingly funny,
jokey guy. He talks fast and his incredibly smart and expert medical dialogue
is peppered with equal parts liberal-leaning political jokes and goofy,
good-natured flirting. We adore him – partly because of his endearing banter,
but mostly because he’s very, very good at what he does. And when the situation
is serious, he gets serious fast.
Chester’s doctor came into the exam room, took one look at the eye and
got serious. No jokes, no corny pick-up lines, all business. Within minutes, he
was on his cell phone to a top pediatric ophthalmologist, personally arranging
an emergency appointment that same day. Several hours and lots of tests later,
Chester was diagnosed with a hyphema, which is a pooling of blood inside the
anterior chamber of the eye (between the cornea and iris) that covers part or
all of the iris and pupil, and blocks vision. It’s a serious injury and the absolute WORST
thing we could do was touch his eye with anything. (Good thing I’d been jamming
ointment into it for almost 24 hours!)
When I mentioned to the doctor, toward the end of the appointment, that
we were scheduled to get on a plane to Hawaii in four days, he looked at me for
a few painfully quiet seconds and then began a barely perceptible shake of his
head. “We’ll see how it goes,” he said, “but I’d feel a lot better if it was at
least a week out.” Chester and I made our way out to the lobby, quietly
scheduled our appointments for daily check-ups, and got to the elevator before
Chester burst into tears “I’m so sorry, mommy! I ruined Hawaii!” he sobbed.
We tried to focus on the positive. The prognosis for a full recovery
was good, as long as the injury didn’t re-bleed. If a hyphema re-bleeds, vision
loss is likely. So, a plastic shield was taped over Chester’s eye and we were
sent home with an array of eye drops and strict orders for ZERO physical
activity.
This sucks.
Now, anyone who knows 9 year old boys knows how difficult this is, and
anyone who knows MY 9 year old boy, knows that it is regular-difficult times
ten. Fortunately he was able to watch TV
- albeit out of only one normally functioning eye. I think the only thing that kept
him down and submitting to all the eye drops was the fear of not being able to
go to Hawaii if he didn’t heal quickly.
Fortunately, the hyphema shrank each day and Chester’s vision improved.
And, because of Matt’s super-fancy-diamond-platinum traveler status, we were
able to push flights and hotels out a few days to give Chester some extra
healing time. A week after the dreaded balloon incident, the doctors gave us
clearance to proceed with our vacation. It was noon and our flight was at 6:00,
so we frantically finished packing and called a cab to take us to the airport.
Alas, the cab did not show up. First it was just a little late, then it
was significantly late, and then it was really, really, ridiculously late. At
that point, we made a last minute decision to jump into our car and race to the
airport. It felt like the scene from “Home Alone” where the entire McCallister
family is running through O’Hare Airport to catch their holiday flight to Paris.
Except this was June, there were only three of us, and we were heading from
Seattle to Maui. Just imagine “Tiny Bubbles” playing in the background instead of
“Run, Run Rudolph” and add some extra pathetic points for the plastic eye
shield still taped over Chester’s eye. Just like the McCallisters, we made it
onto our flight. (Unlike the McAllisters, we remembered our young son.)
~ Part II: Blue Skies Ahead ~
The next morning, we woke up in Hawaii to a beautiful, ocean-front
view. Things were definitely looking up. We just had to get through one more doctor-ordered
day of keeping Chester low key before he could go crazy swimming and snorkeling
and doing whatever his heart desired. So, we explored the property, walked on
the beach, and rented snorkel gear.
We woke up on day two to find what you almost always find in Hawaii –
sunny skies, warm breezes, and beautiful, blue-green waves. Chester could not
get down to the beach to start snorkeling fast enough, which made the sunscreen
application process akin to some kind of rodeo event involving wiggly baby
livestock, half-hitched hooeys, and one very worn-out cowgirl (that’s me). With
coffee consumed, sunscreen hurriedly applied, and gear gathered, we made our
way down to the beach.
Chester approached snorkeling the way he approaches pretty much
everything – wholeheartedly and with zero trepidation. We swam around for about
45 minutes, exploring the rocks, looking at neon colored fish, and feeling like
we were in the world’s most beautiful aquarium. We got out for a break, and were
just starting to feel like we really were on vacation. Matt and I were sitting on
the sand. Chester was splashing in the surf. The sun was shining. The palm
trees were swaying. It was the first exhale… That moment when we felt ourselves
begin to release all the stress and tension of Chester’s injury and the
uncertainty of whether our vacation would happen.
And then, two people came stumbling out of the water, dragging another
person in between them, and screaming for help. The beach was busy and nearly
everyone leapt to their feet. A few people managed to pull the woman onto the
beach right in front of us. She was lifeless and blue. It was horrifying and
not something I wanted Chester to see ever, much less on his first real day in
Hawaii. I kept him at a distance while several people performed CPR. I have
been through CPR training multiple times and I’ve certainly seen fake CPR on
TV, but I think this was the first time I’d actually seen it performed in
person and it was far more violent and upsetting than I realized it would be.
Over and over, the chest compressions and breaths caused the woman’s limp body to
lurch on the sand. It seemed like it took an hour for the paramedics to arrive.
She was still a sickening shade of blue and not moving when they loaded her
into the ambulance. I don’t know if she ended up surviving. After that, we
couldn’t bring ourselves to get back into the water that day.
As anyone who has children knows, seeing your kids sick or injured leaves
you feeling utterly helpless and out of control. As we sat there on the beach,
watching Chester play, I realized how overpowering that feeling had been over
the past week and how good it felt to begin to let it go. Unfortunately, seeing
someone drown brought it rushing back very quickly. I felt as though danger was
lurking on every sunny beach and waiting to pounce from behind every palm tree.
It took me another day or two to let the worrying go.
~Part III: Just when you think it’s safe to go back in the water… ~
After the rough start, the rest of our vacation truly was paradise.
Mostly. There was the episode where Matt, in search of a black sand beach, led
us into a mosquito-infested swamp where I nearly lost my favorite flip-flops in
knee deep mud and twisted my ankle in a valiant effort to save them. But that was
only a minor set-back. The rest was fantastic… Except the unfortunate stand-up
paddle boarding incident where I nearly knocked my teeth out, suffered a giant
fat lip and cut my nose open. That also kind of sucked.
With Matt on a conference call, (Whatever happened to not working on
vacation?) I took Chester out paddle boarding with me and, as we waded into
the surf, I made the grave error of taking my eyes off the waves to keep my
eyes on my child. For the record, I grew up on the coast and I totally know
better, but apparently the maternal instinct is no match for life lessons
learned, and trumps every other bit of knowledge ever gained. So, I turned my
back on a wave and it did what waves do, which is pick my puny body up and slam
it into the sand. And to add insult (and more injury) to injury, it also picked
up the paddle board and slammed that down onto my face.
I felt like I was going to black out, but somehow forced myself to
remain conscious. I scrambled to my feet and turned to find Chester looking
terrified. “HURRY UP! GET ON!” I yelled at him. He scrambled over to me,
climbed onto the board, and I managed to paddle us out to calm water. As I sat,
straddling the board, very gingerly touching my face to assess the damage, Chester
cautiously looked over his shoulder and said, “Uh, mom, we don’t have to go
ahead with the paddle boarding.” “Oh yes, we do,” I barked, “We ARE paddle
boarding!” He was quiet for a few moments and then turned around a little further
and said, “But mommy, you’re bleeding. Bad.” I asked him where it was coming
from and it took us both a while to figure out that most of it was coming from
the cut on the bridge of my nose and not as much from the inside of my nose and
my mouth. “It’s just a little blood, no big deal,” I assured him as I
repeatedly washed the blood off into the water. (I know, I know, cue the
sharks. Luckily, the waters seemed to be shark-free that day.) We bounced back
and enjoyed an hour of paddle boarding with Chester periodically glancing back
at my face and saying reassuring things like, “Oooooh, mommy, you don’t look
good,” and “Um, yeah, your mouth. It’s all messed up, mom.”
Who needs Botox when you can just slam a paddle board into your face?!
But seriously besides THAT, we did have a wonderful vacation and it
really was paradise. We swam, we snorkeled with giant turtles, we hiked, we
surfed, we boogie boarded, we paddle boarded, we ate lots of delicious meals
and drank many Mai Tais. I really wish I was there right now, doing it all
again; minus the dangerous balloons and drowning people and scary swamps and
paddle board accidents, of course. But even with all that stuff, it was pretty
great. Chester’s eye is completely healed, as is my face. The mosquito bites
are gone and my favorite flip flops are still with me. I’ll take a little
trouble mixed in with my paradise. I certainly wouldn’t want things to get
boring.
