Memorial weekend of my third grade year I went with my step dad and sister to my step dad’s friends house to go play with his kids. His son and I  decided to go and hit golf balls around, looking back now I realize that’s where everything began to go down hill letting 8 year old kids play golf. I had  decided I wanted to mess with my friend by saying think fast and act like I was going to hit the ball; turns out that was the worst thing I could have done; thinking about it now this was the single event that has caused me so many problems to this day.
A few minutes pass by, and my friend shouts. “Think Fast!¨

I turn around and hear the distinct sound of a golf ball getting hit by a driver then I said, “What was that?”
Then time began to slow for the moment as  I see the ball hurl at me but not as fast as it should have been, it moved as if it were a turtle slow and steady (which we know wins the race like the ball in this case). I had thought that there was no way that my friend would actually hit the ball towards me, but turns out I was wrong. With the force the ball hit, it would have made you think it was hit by an All Star MLB Home Run Derby Player.  From that incident of getting hit in the eye which permanently made me half blind in one eye, taught me not to do something like that again. Messing  with people that will take jokes too serious can have dangerous consequences. Whether or not those consequences affect you directly or not does not matter. The reason is it’s possible people can take it too far and hurt someone.

After laying on the ground for a moment I raise my hand to my eye and look at my hand and see the crimson color of blood covering my hand than some of it trickles down my cheek and I get the distinct metallic taste of blood on my tongue. After, seeing how much blood was over my hands and the fact my eye was forced shut I still did not think it was bad. I then attempted to walk to my stepdad, then  I started stumbling, then I collapsed and I yelled for my friend to get my stepdad.

When he saw me all he said was“ We have to go get your mom,” thinking about it now that's when I realized how bad this was going to be.

Approximately 30 minutes later, we arrived to my Mom's work; she comes running right for the truck and opens the  door to the truck, to this day I still remember my mom’s reaction to seeing me all the blood drained from her face turning  her skin to pale white, her eyes went wide with shock and putting a look of pure horror on her face, that scared the hell out of me. After that occured my step dad drove us to the closest doctor’s office where I spent the next 30 minutes just for the doctors to be dumbfounded with how bad it looked.

Then they proceeded to tell us “We can’t help him here, no one here is a specialist with eyes you have to take him to Beaumont if you want to save his eye”

As soon as they said that I thought to myself “I’ll never be able to see again I’m going to lose my eye.” What the doctor said about having to go to the specialists taught me to go straight to the ER which has specialists unlike regular doctor’s office which offer no help in emergencies. That lesson helped me a few years later when I had another incident with my eye. It took slightly over an hour to reach Beaumont during that whole trip I just remember the extreme amount of pain I was in and how my other eye forced itself shut because of your bodies natural reaction to eye injuries, that terrified me as an eight year old boy who could not open either eyes I thought I was going to be blind forever.

Upon arrival at Beaumont I was rushed straight into the ER for surgery so they could attempt to save my eye. My real father had been waiting for us at Beaumont. When my surgery began they asked if my parents were squeamish; well it turns out my father was because when they pulled out the instruments they needed for the surgery my dad fainted because he thought they were going to remove my eye.

Hearing about how your father fainted from the tools they were about to use on me did not bolster my optimism of me being able to keep my eye or the fact that doctor had told me the inside of my eye looked just like a bowl of tomato soup. So I began to freak out, which then resulted me in getting me drugged with morphine for the pain and so I was passive enough to do what they needed me to do. Since I was drugged I do not remember anything else from that night except that it I spent five hours in surgery and I got sick twice from the morphine.
Altogether, three surgeries later this incident has left me half blind in one eye unable to read from it and permanently scarred of any small flying objects, now I avoid baseball and golf like it is the plague. The damage this incident did to my eye is not worth the miniscule amount of enjoyment from playing those sports in my opinion it’s much better safe than sorry.