Chapter 12
After Devon finished Brandon Yates’s portrait on Christmas Day, she decided she loved it.
It was a little crazy and eccentric, as he was, but it was so him.
Even Thornton’s collar looked great, with silver spikes on it that balanced the helmet and the miniature armor.
And the dog’s expression was perfect. She smiled as she signed it.
A castle in a misty forest showed dimly in the background, adding even more fantasy to the painting, which was what Brandon had said he wanted.
She had never done a portrait quite like it.
It always thrilled her when she did something completely different.
It would look great in one of her shows, if he loaned it to her.
He had said he would. It really did look medieval, and “Gothic,” which had been Brandon’s vision.
She had paints all over her palette, and she wanted to clean her brushes.
She had bought new supplies the week before Christmas, and a new cleaning fluid for her brushes that the salesclerk at the art supply said was fantastic and would take the paint off a car, which sounded a little extreme, but she agreed to try it.
It came in a big bottle, and he told her to wear rubber gloves when she used it.
She opened the bottle, and then remembered to get the rubber gloves from under the kitchen sink.
She walked into the kitchen holding the bottle with one hand, tripped on the carpet as she approached the sink, and the chemical in the bottle splashed up toward her face and went straight into her eyes.
She felt as though someone had put a hatchet through each of her eyes, and everything went instantly black, as she closed them.
But it was too late, her eyes were bathed in the toxic chemical, and burned like fire.
She dropped the bottle in the sink, groping her way to find it, and the solution got on her hands too.
Her eyes and her hands were burning, and when she opened her eyes, she could see light and dark, but no shapes.
She was temporarily blinded by the product.
She tried to find her way around her kitchen and was bumping into things, with the excruciating pain in her eyes.
She thought of calling her downstairs neighbor, and remembered that he was in Florida for the holidays, visiting his mother.
She had no one to call and she couldn’t see, and the pain was almost unbearable.
She didn’t know what else to do and she couldn’t stand the pain.
She groped her way back to the studio, trying to remember where she had left her phone.
She thought it was on the table with her paints.
And every time she tried to open her eyes to find her way, all she could see by then was darkness, and no light at all.
“I’m blind,” she said to the operator. “I spilled a chemical in my eyes and I can’t see, and the pain is terrible.” She was sobbing.
“Do you know what the chemical was?”
“No, I don’t. I’m an artist, and I’m blind. Can you send someone to help me? I have to go to a hospital.” The operator checked with dispatch.
“They’ll be with you in ten minutes. Is your building locked?”
“Yes.”
“Can you open your front door? We’ll have the police get us into the building,” she said.
Devon almost fainted from the pain as she groped her way to the door, and collapsed after she unlocked it.
She left it open—there was no one in the building, which was divided into two apartments, and her neighbor was gone.
She drifted in and out of consciousness as she waited, crouched on the floor, and she heard sirens in the distance and wondered if they were for her.
A few minutes later she heard the outer door being forced, and heavy footsteps running up the stairs.
She called out so they could find her. All she could see by then was blackness, and a male voice told her they were going to lay her down on a gurney.
“What’s your name?” the voice asked her.
“Devon Darcy,” she said in a voice contorted with the excruciating pain in her eyes, and her arms and hands were burning too, they felt like they were on fire.
“I’m Mike, I’m a paramedic, and Ellen and Jake are here with me,” the voice said. “I’m going to flush your eyes with a sterile saline solution. We’re going to do that all the way to the hospital. Can you open your eyes for me?” His voice was strong and firm.
“I don’t know, they burn so much.” She was crying and felt nauseous and dizzy from the pain, as she felt a gentle hand take hers and hold it while they poured the saline solution in her eyes and on her hands and arms, and then she was lifted onto the gurney, covered with a blanket, and strapped in.
“We’re going to leave fast now. Do you have any of the chemical left that burned you?” Mike asked.
“I dropped the bottle in the kitchen sink,” she said, as Jake covered her with another blanket and Ellen went to find the bottle, and Mike kept flushing her eyes with a steady stream of the saline solution.
“I left my purse in the kitchen, my phone is in it,” she said. She was shaking from the pain and in shock.
Ellen was back a minute later. “Got it,” she said to Mike. “There’s about a third of the bottle left,” she said hastily and told Devon she had her purse and phone.
“We’re out of here,” Mike said telling Jake to turn out the lights and asking Ellen to get Devon’s keys out of her purse to lock the door, and a minute later Devon heard the door close and she felt them tip the gurney to get her down the stairs, while Ellen continued the steady stream of saline solution to her eyes.
Devon’s face and neck were soaked by the solution, and her eyes never stopped burning for a second, nor did her hands and arms. They were on fire, and she couldn’t see anything, only blackness.
Devon felt them set the gurney down in the ambulance and heard the doors slam.
She was still in terrible pain and heard the siren as they raced to the hospital.
They rushed her into the trauma unit, and everything was moving quickly.
They were still flushing her eyes with the saline solution and had washed her hands and arms to get the chemicals off them, to stop them from burning her further.
Different voices of people she couldn’t see kept asking her questions.
She was then rushed to the operating room, where they put her under anesthesia to clean her eyes and treat her burns.
Devon had an overwhelming sense of panic and no one to call.
She was alone, wondering if she would ever see again.
When she woke up, she was in the recovery room, and when she was fully awake, a doctor came to see her.
A soft tube had been placed in each eye connected to a sterile saline solution, like an IV, to continue flushing her eyes.
The doctor explained that the flushing would continue for twenty-four hours until the pH of her eyes had returned to normal, once all of the chemicals had been washed away.
They had put anesthetic drops in her eyes while she was unconscious, so she was momentarily out of pain.
Dr. Allen, the head of ophthalmology, explained to her that the solution that had gotten into her eyes contained sodium hydroxide, lye in layman’s terms, common in industrial cleaning solutions, ammonia, and calcium hydroxide, which had resulted in a grade III alkali burn to her eyes.
He said that damage to the cornea occurs within one to five minutes, and can happen within fifteen seconds of the injury, and the paramedics arriving on the scene quickly had been vital for her long-term recovery.
They would monitor the pressure inside her eyeballs, and antibiotic ointments and steroids would be used to prevent infection.
He said it would take several weeks to assess the extent of the injury, and determine whether it had caused permanent damage to her eyes.
They were guardedly hopeful, but they could not yet rule out blindness or the loss of her eyes as a result.
But they hoped that would not be the case.
And she would have to remain in the hospital to be properly monitored and have the ointments applied every few hours, and he assured her that he and the senior resident, Dr. Louise Lovato, would be treating her themselves.
Devon listened to Dr. Allen in a haze, and the words that kept sending shockwaves through her were “blind,” and the loss of her sight, and even her eyes.
It was a huge price to pay for a stumble in her kitchen with a bottle of cleaning solution in her hand.
She couldn’t imagine her life if she went blind.
After the doctor spoke to her, the nurse gave her a shot to sedate her and make her sleep, and they moved her to a private room.
Before the nurse gave her the shot, she gently asked Devon if there was anyone she wanted to call, and she shook her head.
She had no one to call, and there was no point calling Charlie.
If he didn’t want her when she was healthy and whole, he wouldn’t want her blind, and she was too proud to call him.
She drifted into a drugged sleep after the shot, her tears mixing with the saline solution flushing her eyes.
When Devon woke in the morning, she was still in pain. She was alone in the room, and she could hear noises and voices in the distance. Dr. Allen returned as she was waking up, and she remembered him. He introduced her to Dr. Lovato, who sounded young and sympathetic.
Dr. Allen was as kind and cautious about the outcome as he had been the night before. She was still hooked up to the flushing mechanism and she felt as though she had knives in her eyes.