Remember this guy?

and remember how I said that everything healed remarkably well and we lived happily ever after?

Well...it wasn't that simple after all.

As if a wretching dog wasn't enough...

Mike decided he needed to add a little drama to our lives last week as well. 

We thought the eye injury was over and done when Mike's eye started to bother him again.

The irritation got worse...and worse...until eventually his eye was all bloodshot and he had tears running down his face.  This was making church and work and pretty much any public life rather awkward.  And while "awkward" is a way of life for me...for a guy who doesn't like to draw attention to himself, Mike doesn't "do" awkward very well.  But more importantly, his eye was sensitive to light and his vision was deteriorating and so we ended up here:

His eye doctor did a thorough examination, some sort of a dye test, and swabbed under his eyelid to be sure there weren't any foreign objects in his eye.  It really wasn't that bad, but if you know Mike, you probably know where this is going...  Yeah, this attendant shows up in the waiting room.  "Mrs. Amundson?  Could you come with me?  Your husband isn't feeling well." I walk into a dark room where Mike is reclining in an exam chair, eyes closed with a cool cloth across his forehead and a glass of water in his hand... That was awkward...  Ha!  ;-) It wasn't that big of a deal--this is nothing unusual for Mike.  But you could tell that Dr. Johnson and the rest of the staff were quite concerned.  Apparently they don't have patients black out in the exam chair every day... There were no foreign objects in his eye after all, and while we're not exactly sure, it appears that he must have scratched his eye when he fell which apparently caused him to gradually develop a sensitivity to his contact lens solution.  At least, that's their theory.  They gave him some medicated eye drops and told him to stay out of contacts as much as possible till he's symptom free. So, he's been to the eye doctor twice last week and once this week.  His eye improves every day and he should recover completely. I feel like we've sorta been in the Twilight Zone the last week or so... We have some fun things planned for the next few days, and I'm looking forward to some "normal" family time again...Lord willing...

Keeping life interesting...

 We recently had a brief family adventure in Wisconsin Dells (which I'll tell you more about later). Mike was off work, and had a softball game the night before we planned to leave. He was playing in the outfield that night against a team that could hit really well... So, the guys were playing deep in the outfield at Allendale park--where there happens to be a large hedge of lilac bushes in right field.  Mike doesn't pretend to be the best or the strongest or the fastest player on his team.  But one of the things that makes it fun to come out and watch him is that he's gonna go all out no matter what.  If he thinks he can get another base, he's gonna run...and if it's gonna be close, he's gonna slide (which is why you can count your blessings that you don't do his laundry... Some weeks I soak/wash his softball pants 3 times.)  Sometimes, it can be stressful, but it's always fun.  (Watching the games that is...not the laundry.) At the last game, I think he had a mind to give his dear wife a heart attack.  There was a long drive to right field, and I think for a moment Mike had delusions that he was Torii Hunter because he went back...back...back...and headlong into the hedge of lilac bushes.  (Wishing I had a video...)  He was down for a bit--just long enough to make me wonder if he might be hurt.  But then, he got up on his knees and retrieved his cap and the ball--which he did not catch by the way.  It woulda all been worth it, I suppose, if he had caught it...but, he didn't.  So it wasn't.  Being Mike, he went on to play the rest of the game.  I didn't realize until after the game that a lilac branch had snagged his eye: 

 

Of course he would have to do this the night before we leave for a waterpark vacation...

It was pretty deep and we didn't want to risk infection, especially that close to his eye.  I was a bit concerned about the public pools in the waterpark.  So, we brought this stuff and he put it on a few times a day:

Silver is a natural broad-spectrum antibiotic.  I gotta tell you -- if you have little boys or just overgrown boys -- this is a product you should have.  Our experience has been that it's soothing (not painful) in wounds and it really helps the healing process.  It takes the pain of a burn away almost instantly.  It even eases the itch of the chicken pox.  :-)  It's good stuff!

Mike's eye healed remarkably fast.  It scabbed-over in 2 days, and within about a week, the scab was gone!

Here's a close-up of his eye today:

We're so thankful.  That coulda been so much worse.  Thankfully, the rest of Mike's games are at the Stewartville fields which have much nicer outfields with fences instead of lilac bushes.  Now if he can just manage to keep his face out of the fence...