Well get this: The Speech Therapist had pink eye. It surely wasn't "day old pink eye." I could tell it was still fresh. Real fresh, as in just passed the non-contagious mark a few hours ago SUPER-FRESH. Her eyes were watering and very red, nose trickling, and she was sneezing up a storm. I wasn't very happy.
PP thought it was funny. Every time the therapist sneezed PP would just start laughing hysterically. It's the cutest laugh. I couldn't help laughing along with her! On a more serious note, I would have to say the amount of frustration I felt upon seeing a sick employee coming in to work with my daughter was staggering. I didn't want to yell at her, so I laughed instead. A lot.
Days went by with no pink eye. Friday rolls around and I am feeling more confident that we escaped the clutches of neon eye boogers and open mouth breathing. Time to get our play on! We planned to visit Great Grandma D's house and give a hug to our visiting Auntie K. During the visit, PP ended up getting into a city lake and was splashed in the face a few times, which really isn't the end of the world for how gross it is. We cleaned her up and she seemed just fine until Saturday morning. Her left eye was red and a bit puffy. She rubbed it a tad more than usual. It didn't take me long to come to a diagnosis, but I wanted to be sure. During the rush to get out of the house PP went head on with the corner of the orange curb chair, sending her into a frenzy of blood, boogers, red eyes and a very swollen nose. I felt so bad for PP! Not only did she have a giant owie on her nose, but I was sure that strangers would think she got in a bar fight!
What a day.
I got on the phone with the voicemail for triage nursing. In a nutshell, I asked whether to bring PP into the ER or the clinic. I knew she had to go in and see a doctor regardless of what was wrong with her eye. That thing was nasty looking! I thought it would also be a good idea to get some advice on what to do about poor PP's nose. When the triage nurse called me back she just asked me a bunch of questions and then told me to wait three hours until I made a decision about bringing PP into a doctor.
SAY WHA?!
The nurse told me to treat PP at home with hot and cold packs on her eyes because she suspected it was a cold. If (more like when) the symptoms got worse, we would go to the hospital. She reminded me of a 3 hour time limit. I was a bit annoyed. Not only did she circle around answering my original question, but she told me to wait until my daughter got worse.
No, nurse, you're wrong. It seems as though you have absolutely no idea what your talking about. Maybe my question should have sounded more like "Pink eye. ER or clinic?" but who knows. I went ahead and drove PP to the ER at Children's Hospital. The doctor took one look at her and called it pink eye, remarking that this was the 6th case of it she has treated in the past few days. I was also told to wait until the swelling on her little nose goes down until I have a doctor do something about it, which makes perfect sense to me so I'll listen to that counsel. We got the eye drops and went home to recuperate.
Thankfully, PP is on the upswing. I think that because of the results of her recent surgery, PP has a lower tolerance for infection. She was on a daily antibiotic for the past two years and just came off of it a couple months ago! She's got some sicknesses to catch up on. Yay. School should make things very entertaining around this household!
Clean hands and tidy faces
XoX
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