Sunday, November 29, 2009

What cures pink eye?

Well blog buddies...it wouldn't be a holiday around my house if one of my kids didn't have some sort of sickness. This Thanksgiving was Tegan's turn....I'm guessing he didn't want to be left out or else he decided to give poor little Ry a break. Somewhere during the past week my little man picked up the pink eye. Now when I say he had pink eye, I'm not saying that his eyeball was a little pink. It all started the night before Thanksgiving when I was laying in bed trying to go to sleep and I had this fleeting thought about how I was going to make it thru a holiday without one of my kids being sick. I only wish I would have counteracted that thought with something other than that. Well...Thanksgiving morning I hear my son yelling for me from his baby bed and asking for a wipe. Well that is a sure fire thing something isn't right. As I walked in his door I see an eye that is half closed up and crud caked all over his eye. I immediately get him up, clean his eye with baby shampoo and go get ready to head to my annual Thanksgiving place...Regional FirstCare. Only b/c the economy sucks and there are budget cuts (this isn't verified but my own theory) our not so wonderful Firstcare was CLOSED. My only other option on Thanksgiving day was the ER....The FLU, VIRUS and any other SICKNESS you can imagine...ER. Well I sucked it up and decided to deal with it until his Dr. opened back up the next day. After warning everyone that they may be pink eye infected and getting their approval to still come, we headed to our Thanksgiving lunch destination. Everyone stood around looking at Teg from a distance and talking about how I must be a horrible mother and let him hit his eye or spray something harmful in his eye they have never seen pink eye look like that. So I started doubting my pink eye diagnosis' that I gave him and grabbed him up and headed to the ER. Praying the whole way that it wasn't pink eye but that they also couldn't prove that I let him do something harmful to himself:) Anyways, we walk in to a very calm and bare ER and was back in a room within 15 minutes. A Dr. and three nurses (one being male and rude) followed me in to the room...I felt as though we were receiving the royal treatment. I mean seriously, who takes their kid to the ER on Thanksgiving day and gets seen within 15 minutes. Well the Dr. gives his diagnosis' from the door and there you have it folks...SEVERE CONJUNCTIVITIS. I have a sigh of relief (as I wipe my brow with the pink eye infested hand) that I didn't harm him in any way during his sleep that night b/c all of my and Paul's family had totally convinced me that at some point I got up in the night and either hit him in the eye or squirted spray n wash in his eye (and since he has actually sprayed spray n wash in his eye before and it didn't look like that afterward, I was pretty sure I was about to be arrested for abuse). Well they flush his eye (while he screams), then shines a light in his eye to check for an abscess (while he screams) and then puts a cream in his eye (while he screams). Then they tell me they will be right back with a prescription and his discharge papers. WOW...I am going to be in and out of the ER with my son on a Holiday in less than an hour!!! Are you kidding me...wait, what's that...you are kidding me? That's right, apparently it takes almost 1 hour and 30 min. to retrieve discharge papers and a prescription all while I hold my 35 lb kid in my arms b/c I fear of what he may catch if I dare let him down. Finally as my muscles are shaking and feel as though they are weakening from holding him...I open the door to a smart pants male nurse who thought he would take out his "I"m having to work on Thanksgiving day" frustrations on me. So...I gave him my best "I'm having to wait in the ER with my sick child on Thanksgiving day" frustration right back. Let's just say it didn't end well and another nurse discharged us.
At this point my sons eye is completely closed shut and he can't open it at all. The discharge coming from his eye is now blood but yet the "NURSE" said his eye looked so much better than it did when we came in. I just wanted to get out of there so I just took their word for it. I have to say though that unless we caught a heart attack or chest pains...I'm pretty sure we were safe in the ER at that exact moment.

Needless to say my kid woke up the next morning with pink eye in his other eye. Double pink eye in a two year old is NOT FUN...please, just take my word on that! Twice a day me and Paul together sit on him and hold him down to swipe an ointment antibiotic across his eye. And he is almost healed besides the first eye is really bloodshot but seems to be healing.
I took pictures of his eye after he had already had 10hours of medicine...this was a huge improvement from how it was earlier on Thanksgiving day....


Before he had it in the other eye!
(that's blood dripping from his eye)

Made your eyes hurt didn't it! Be careful...the rumor is that you may catch this pink eye just from looking at him:) But so far the rest of us have stayed safe with way to much hand washing and more Lysol than my lungs can stand to hold. If I don't die from the pink eye, it will for sure be from an overload of Lysol to me system!

So on to the title...what cures pink eye. Well, I'm still not sure b/c I used all three things. Those things would be the prescription, baby shampoo and BREAST MILK. That's right, I said breast milk. Google it, it's so true. Don't worry, it wasn't mine...it was my sisters (does that make it better or worse?). Let's just say that Teg's eyes are getting better and he now walks around saying "Dat milk cold in my eye":)

1 comment:

  1. My baby had pink eye shortly after coming home and I used some of my breastmilk in it. Cured within a few hours!

    ReplyDelete