Close To The Eye

My four year old (almost) had a tough time the other day.  She was sitting on the doorstep with our cat when she must have done something he didn't like.  My husband caught it just as it happened and brought her in sobbing.  The cat went for her eye.  Thank goodness he didn't get a a hair closer, otherwise it would have ended up as a trip to emergency.  As it was, it was all pretty traumatizing.  

I instantly put a warm washcloth on her fact to start the cleaning process, I knew this wasn't going to be easy because it was so closed to her eye.  She was screaming uncontrollably and I just kept holding her and the cloth over her eye.  She was saying, "I've got blood on my hands!"  Poor thing.  As I held her I rummaged through my box of herbs, I was looking for Chamomile to make a compress (so good for any eye ailments), I came across some lavender essential oil.  Perfect, I thought.  Although strong enough to kill bacteria and clean wounds, it's still a gentle herb, and when diluted, can even be ok to put in your eye (thanks mom!).   

So, I put a few drops in a bowl full of water and dampened some cotton pads.  I noticed that as soon as the lavender was on her face, she instantly stopped crying.  "Do you smell that?" I asked her.  "Lavender." She said.  I was amazed at the calming affect it had on her.  Herbs in action!  "Take a deep breath."  I told her, "concentrate on the smell".  Although she continued to cry on and off after that, the initial shock had settled some.  I held it to her eye for about 25 minutes the first time, we watched a movie and cuddled.

Now, four days later, I'm still watching it closely, cat scratches can get nasty fast and if they don't get cleaned can become super infected.  It seems to be healing up nicely though.  What was the trick?  The same lavender compress mentioned above, held to her eye for about 15 minutes, twice a day.  As well as room temperature chamomile tea drops to the eye to keep it clean (once in the morning).  I did dab a bit of Neosporin on the affected area the first couple of days.  Nothing wrong with a little East meets West.  My poor sweetie!  What do you do for your nasty cuts and scrapes??