What Kati did next; There is only so much Pooh I can take

On Thursday evening my boy scratched my eye.

He didn’t mean it. It was bedtime and we were reading “Winnie the Pooh”.

After the ninth rendition I had reached my peak with Pooh and to pleas of “again, again” I said “no”.

He threw out his arms in upset and one finger eased past my lids and lashes and stuck right into the white bit. I will admit, I swore but in my defence, if you have ever had a foreign body penetrate that particular area of ones anatomy you will be nodding your head with understanding.

My eye started to water and didn’t stop, not after an hour or even two.

Four hours later I was in absolute agony grasping my face lumbering into walls and doors, sweating, gasping, heart pounding.

I got a taxi to the hospital just as the pubs kicked out. Marvellous.

I got to reception clutching my eye socket like a deranged animal. The man in front was being questioned. “Who’s your next of kin?”

“What’s that?”

“Well, it’s the person we get hold of in an emergency.”

“Oh, that’s me.”

“Right, no I mean if you aren’t well, who can we get in contact with?”

“Oh right, that’ll be me dad.”

“Okay and does your dad have a number?”

“Yes we share a mobile, its 079...”

I needn’t go on. I was groaning like an angry bear behind him.

Ten minutes later I was checked in and ready to sit and wait for another couple of hours.

Weeping silently as the glass doors swooshed open and shut, open and shut. Madness would have been a relief.

I was looked at and talked about and eventually left looking like the lost panda of the North.

A patch over my eye with instructions to head to the eye hospital “first thing in the morning.”

Of course morning couldn’t come quick enough as I thrashed my way through the night, pain worse than childbirth — and I’m not exaggerating.

I stumbled into the hospital for the first of five appointments, they scraped skin off my eyeball, they strapped me up like the Elephant Man, I left rattling with painkillers and still the pain continued.

I got home, cursed Winnie and kicked him under the bed.

My boy cried for him. So 10 reads of Winnie later, he fell asleep in my arms.