This has me questioning my role as a mother and how I want to approach sickness in general. However, there is a double-edge sword to all this…I’m a “Web-MD’er”. And to my detriment, I seriously can let the best of HYPOCHONDRIA consume me. (Remind me to tell you sometime how I was CONVINCED I had Leukemia). I own it. But coupled with the fact that I get crazy when my kids are involved does not make me very “sane”. And, to be the best mother I can be, I have to knock this shit off. Thank God my husband is SO CALM, RATIONAL, and most of all PATIENT with me. So from now on, NO webmd.com…ever…ever…again.
So last Monday, FB wakes up with a fever, cough, etc. I of course, think it’s Swine Flu. So we go to the doctor and get promptly diagnosed with a double-ear infection. Since he’s never been sick in his precious 9 months, the PA gives Amoxicillin since he’s never been on any antibiotics thinking this should do the trick.
Fast forward to Friday. You mothers out there know this, and for those of you who aren’t mothers yet, you will have this magic. You can look at your kids and KNOW something isn’t right. You can tell when they’re about to barf, giving you those precious seconds to find any type of barf bag available. You can just tell when something isn’t right. So, I open the door to “Baby School” (it makes me feel better as a parent to say this instead of daycare) and I immediately know something isn’t right with my boy. His teachers say he was running a fever etc. But I noticed something with his right eye. Not quite swollen, but surely not as bright as usual and more PINK than normal. Get home, confirm with hubby his eye isn’t quite right, take him to urgent care, where he was URGENTLY diagnosed with Pink Eye and URGENTLY sent us on our way home. By this time my boy is out for the night, so I decide to give him the eye drops first thing in the morning.
Saturday morning he wakes up jolly as can be, and I give him the drops…all is well. He is super boogery, but I just figure it’s him “draining” from the all infection, etc. We had to go to my in-laws in Parker for the weekend, so by Saturday night, my boy’s eye isn’t getting better, but it’s not worse, and it looks like he may have a rash on his cheeks. Hindsight tells me it’s a rash, but in the moment, I just thought his cheeks were chapped from me constantly wiping his nose, drool, etc. SO NOT THE CASE.
Fast forward to Sunday. Wake up and my boy’s eye is SWOLLEN SHUT, BRIGHT RED, and I’m freaking out. My husband and I take him to the ER where they confirm he’s had an allergic reaction to the eye drops. The drops contained Sulfa and he’s apparently allergic to sulfa. So they give him Benadryl and nothing happens. So, they have to stop the Amoxicillin and eye drops and give him another strong antibiotic. The ER doctor mutters, “We get scared with eye infection because they are so close the brain.” That is all I needed to hear and pure PANIC sets in. We get out of the ER and head home, where his eye is slowly but surely getting worse.
Monday morning we wake up and his eye is completely swollen shut. I FREAK out and get an appointment with his primary pediatrician. His doctor confirms his allergy to sulfa but then looks at the medicines the Urgent Care and ER doctors gave him and I can see his facial expressions are like “WTF?”, but he doesn’t say anything except that we are to stop all medicines at this point. He diagnoses him with a type of eyelid cellulitis basically a bacterial infection of the eyelid and that if the baby had a fever or was not in a good mood (a good thing is that FB has been his regular happy self, if you didn’t know he was sick, you wouldn’t be able to tell) he would’ve admitted FB to the hospital for IV antibiotics. He keeps me calm and tells me he can give FB a shot in the office. Basically he tells me it’s very strong and will be the best bet to fight the infection. So, FB had to get a shot in each little fatty thigh. He screamed bloody murder and I tried to stifle my cry. The doctor also prescribed a strong antihistamine to combat the bizarre swelling. This morning, we woke up and I could see a bit of his beautiful brown eye peeking through. At lunch I went home to see him and his eye does look a bit better. Hubby took him to his follow-up appointment this afternoon, and tomorrow we have to start another 10 day round of antibiotics to keep killing the infection.
So, my dilemma comes in many ways. First, I’m not posting this for sympathy. I’m not interested in hearing what I should’ve done or what I shouldn’t have done, because in the moment, I would’ve done anything, given him anything, because I was thinking about the worst. I was scared into not thinking clearly, not asking the right questions, being intimidated by doctors who know more than I do. But, they don’t know my children like I do, and I have to be their advocate. No matter what. Even in urgent situations, I can’t lose my head. But with my heart split in two toddling outside of body in the forms of a 4-year old girl and a 9-month old baby boy, it’s impossible to not constantly think with my heart. So, I’m on my way to finding alternate solutions to prescription drugs. I’m not going to give up on Western medicine all together, because Western medicine and our AWESOME pediatrician are what turned this medical train wreck around. But I am interested in finding ways to keep our immune system up naturally, researching some herbal remedies that are safe for children and overall just getting more involved with natural healing.
So, here is a picture of my Fat Boy at the ER on Sunday morning…this wasn’t even the worst.
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