October 5, 2010

Clint Cannon's series of unfortunate events

A few weeks ago started "Clint Cannon's series of unfortunate events". He started a welding program in August at the local collage. The first few weeks were book work then they started to weld. He purchased the required protective gear including a welding helmet they carried in the bookstore. It is the traditional helmet not an auto darkening helmet (this is important piece of info). During class he diligently practices his welds always wanting them to look better then they do. I think he may forget that he has only been doing this for a few weeks and it will take a lot of welds to make them perfect. One problem he has is that if he gets himself all set-up and has the helmet down and he goes to arc (guessing on technical terms, sometimes when he is telling me them my brain goes waaaa waaaa waaaa) it may have moved just a tiny bit making the weld less than what he hoped for. Sooo he decided to loosen his helmet so he could have the visor up and then when he was ready he could just nod and it would fall down and he wouldn't have to move his hand from the welder. He practiced this 10 or more times and it worked except for the time he actually started welding. That time it got hung up on one side and did not fall down to protect his eyes.

He got a flash burn which is a burn caused by the UV light or essentially a sunburn to his eyes. He was only able to see red out of his right eye and his left eye was about 50% limited in his vision. Of course during all of this I was at work. Friends took him to quick care then to the eye doctor and home. Prognosis -flash burn, Treatment - no light for 48 hours, eye patch to right eye, Tylenol 3 for pain, rest. We made it through the weekend (that I was suppose to work) with help from great co-workers and supervisor that let me do some creative changes. Monday his vision was better and by Tuesday it was really good.

Tuesday after class he decided to go to the gym. I was excited that he was feeling better and decided once he got home I would take a nap. After picking up Jake from school I found Clint lying on the floor in the bathroom sweating, pale and vomiting. He had no depth perception and vision was once again severely limited in his right eye. We took him to the eye doctor who said his eye was fine and it was something behind his eye. So 2 days later we had an appointment with his primary doc. She was concerned that it could be optic neuritis which can be a symptom of MS and multiple other things but to diagnosis it you need an MRI. It is also important that if it is optic neuritis you have treatment immediately. To make sure that Clint had his MRI that day he needed to be admitted to the hospital.

I was able to get Clint on the pediatric floor where I knew the nurses, they have nice big rooms for our half dozen children to be able to visit and since my mom was visiting I would be able to stay with him (in case he got scared in the middle of the night). He had an overnight stay and we found out that his optic nerve was good, he had a small pineal cyst, and his sinuses are very bad.
Yay for the optic nerve! The pineal cyst is very small, lots of people have them and are not a big deal and we knew his sinuses sucked. So if nothing is wrong with his brain but he still can't see it must be his eye, right?

Yeah not so much. We went to another opthamologist who did 3 hours of testing and his eye is fine. He suggested we see a neurologist (we had during admission) so we were unsure what to do next. After talking with the primary docs nurse he had an appointment on Monday (eye doc stuff was on Friday). So just wait.

Saturday vision still a little blurry but he was feeling good. We went to Aurora's birthday party had dinner with some family and had a great time. We got home late Saturday night and he slept until almost 10 Sunday. He got up and had breakfast complained of a headache and slept until 3. When he got up at 3 I knew what the current issue was he had a sinus infection. Symptoms - headache, sinus pressure, tired, very crabby, sore throat. Yesterday he woke up and also had a GI bug. AWESOME!

I took him back to his scheduled appointment and he indeed had a severe sinus infection. Now that all the bad stuff has been eliminated from his eye issue it may be caused by atypical migraines or his chronic sinus issues. Treatment - antibiotics, saline wash for sinuses, steroid spray for sinuses, singulair for allergies, motrin for swelling, norco for pain and wait. If his vision is better after the current sinus infection is under control then great, if not then we will try migraine treatment.

So now we will just wait and SEE :)