Ben's Unfortunate Incident

Last weekend was General Conference. Usually I make plans with some girlfriends and do something fun while Devan is at priesthood session Saturday night, but this year I didn't make an effort to plan anything ahead of time. I was a little tired and figured I'd enjoy staying home and getting caught up on some chores. I decided I'd make doughnuts too while Devan was gone and then we could all eat them when he came home. At the last minute I started really feeling like I shouldn't be alone that night so I decided to invite some girls over from church for a playdate/doughnut making. My friend Brittney came over with her 1 year old daughter. Her husband, Steve, and Devan headed off to priesthood session and we began our doughnut making. As it always does with 3 children under 3, things got a little crazy and after a while, Ben was standing at my feet whining for attention. I was trying to hurry up and get the doughnuts fried so we could focus on the kids. All of a sudden the oil spit and splattered my chest. Then I heard Ben scream. It had dripped on Ben's face.

We got a wet washcloth and dabbed the oil off, but then I noticed he wasn't opening one of his eyes. We tried to calm him down for about 10 minutes, but when nothing worked I called Devan and told him he needed to come home. It was a funny looking back on it because I got on the phone and very calmly said, "Ben got splattered with some oil I was cooking with. We need to take him to the hospital because I think some of it may have gotten in his eye, but I'm not sure." He paused a minute and said, "Was the oil hot?" WHAT?! Yes the oil was hot! I wouldn't be calling if I'd accidently dripped room-temperature oil on my baby! I cracked up once I got off the phone.

It was such a blessing that Steve and Brittney were there with us that night. Steve and Devan were able to give Ben a blessing when they got home and then they took Hannah home with them until we could make other arrangements for her.

We headed to the hospital near our house. Ben fell asleep in the car and continued sleeping until he had to be examined by the nurse in the emergency room. I was so afraid that I was going to be questioned and that there were going to be all sorts of suspicions about the mom who burned her baby, but everyone was very kind to us. The people at registration, the nurse, and finally the doctor that saw him all took one look at his burns on his forehead and shoulder and said he'd be just fine. I kept trying to tell people that I was most worried about his eye. The doctor finally numbed his eye and put dye in it to look at it. Ben had been a little fussy before this, but as soon as they put the numbing ointment in his eye, he perked up and seemed so happy. By this time it had been about 2 hours since the burn had occurred. Apparently the only thing that had been hurting this whole time was his eye. The doctor used a black light to examine his eye and under the light we could see an obvious abrasion over the entire colored part of his eye. After seeing that, the doctor got concerned and said that he'd never seen an oil burn to the eye before so he was going to consult with their ophthalmologist. He came back and told us he'd talked to the other doctor and that he's also been on the phone with the University of Utah Hospital and Primary Children's Hospital and they all agreed that Ben needed to be seen that night by a pediatric ophthalmologist at Primary Children's. So, we called Devan's parents to pick up Hannah for the night and headed up to another emergency room.

We got there at about 9 pm, they got him checked in, and then we sat in an exam room and watched TV until the ophthalmologist could get to us at around midnight. By that time Ben was sleeping again and the talented doctor was able to do the eye exam without waking him up! The doctor told us that we'd have to take him a few times to an ophthalmologist to monitor his healing. The only real danger was if it scarred, it may cause him to not learn to see in that eye since he's so young.

We were finally able to go home at about 12:30 with instructions to make an appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist first thing Monday morning. We got him home and were able to feed him for the first time since 6 that night and we headed off to bed. He was up quite a few times crying that night, but he made up for it the next day by sleeping most of the day. We spent most of our Sunday lying down with him. Every once in a while he'd get up and crawl around trying to get comfortable. We were given a prescription eye ointment that we had to put in his eye 4 times a day. He didn't love that, but he was still the sweetest boy. Even though we could tell he didn't feel good, he'd still smile when we played with him. He's such a trooper.

These pictures are from Sunday, the day after the accident.

We took him in to the doctor Monday morning and by then he was all smiles. The doctor walked into the room, and even though he'd never met Ben before, he said, "Oh! He's feeling a lot better!" He said he wouldn't be acting like that if he still had even the slightest burn. He examined the eye and said that it looks like it will heal up just fine. Devan took him back today and the doctor gave him a clean bill of health. It was a sad couple of days, but it had a very happy ending!