Sometimes Ignorance is BLISS

::clears throat::

Pull up a chair. Let me tell you about my day yesterday. I thought it would be a normal, perhaps boringly normal, day. And it started out that way. It really did. And I am glad it wasn't any more unusual than it was. It could have been worse, apparently.

My oldest child, Miss M, entered my bedroom earlier than I'd have liked, but right on schedule for our new normal. In truth, this 7 a.m. wake-up call from my oldest is a major improvement in her sleep habits from pre-tonsillectomy. The tonsillectomy, even though M has had an ear infection since, has been a good thing...a draining thing, but a good thing. M is still hyper-dramatic about everything but that is probably a 6-year-old-going-on-13-year-old thing.

The night before this awakening Ms. D had awoken each time I attempted to lay her in her crib from midnight until she finally slept there at 2 a.m. K had been up once to pee, another time and I fooled myself into thinking he'd gone back to bed. Later I'd gone to the bathroom to turn the light off (that I assumed he'd forgotten to turn off) and discovered him asleep on the floor with his bare butt in the air. He was up again at around 3 or 4. (His dad got up with him that time so I didn't note the time that closely.)

So let me just say I was tired. I had attempted to go to bed "early" for me but my children said "uh-uh." Just Monday I was in bed sleeping at 6 pm and stayed there all night. My house seems to have the plague. The baby was barfing last weekend. PLAGUE.

The older kids played. They ate breakfast. They actually got dressed when they were told to (notably, K got dressed first...this is the boy who not only "rides on 2 wheels" but also dawdles.). They wanted to play their new Superheroes Operation game. They played. D napped.

I went about the actions of getting lunch ready. I vaguely recall that K had laid down. (Why do I not notice the signs EVER?) Once lunch was ready...minutes, literally...I went to get K up to eat and he told me he could not open his eyes. WTF?

So then I wondered about the validity of his distress and M ate lunch while K lay and remained pretty much silent and motionless which is, in itself, in indication of something radically wrong with the universe. (This is the child that people will tell me, within minutes of meeting him, "wow he's a hoot!" or "he's quite the character" and he is.)

I called the nurse line to see if I was a freak, overprotective mom (uh instincts have not been wrong more than 3-4 times in 6 1/2 years) because I hate to feel like I am overreacting. I answered 4382 questions with mostly comments like "I'm not sure how bad his pain is since I am not him" and also "well, his eyes are puffy but he has been crying too so I don't know if it's normal crying puffiness or abnormal weird-eye-stuff puffiness." Eventually she told me to bring him in for an appointment.

So I spent the time from then until we needed to leave for the appointment torn between letting my son nap (who had been up 3 times each of the previous nights) and keeping him up to keep an eye on him. In the end, he napped for an hour and I spent another 5-10 helping him open his eyes again through the gunk.

****Is anyone still here? Honest to God I don't know why anyone reads this blog. ***Crickets***

Let me jump ahead to the actual diagnosis. K has bilateral (fancy medical talk for "BOTH") ocular (fancy medical talk for "EYES") cellulitis. Or so that's what this doctor thought. I'd link you to the medical page but really you don't care that much so I'll just tell you. It's a bacterial infection of the deep tissue. (K's eyelids and tissue underneath are infected.) It seems to be staph or some other crappy germ. It is potentially fatal if left untreated. He is being treated and I keep reminding myself of that.

It's really just that "potentially fatal" that stops a mother's heart. Also, "bring him in if he seems to get worse." Well Holy Hell, my judgment is a little off because you told me my son could potentially die when he was just fine this morning.

So we went to SuperTarget (because we love to spend money there and it is only 3 minutes from home on even a bad day) and filled his prescription. We also bought a couple more DVDs because really, what is the difference when you already own 14682 DVDs?

Once we got home I tried to put away the groceries, soothe the baby who is (thank the good Lord) almost always low maintenance and happy, plus get a snack ready for K since he needed food with his medicine. And of course Miss M was jealous of the attention even though she had it all not so long ago.


At this point I was able to dose my boy with antibiotics. He looked something like this, which was actually pretty healty-looking compared to to earlier (and, in retrospect, later) times.


I thought K was napping but turns out he just couldn't open his eyes again. Turned into about 3 hours of that. He didn't tell me. Sigh. NO REALLY. SIGH.

I was near to calling the ambulance for the little dude, but we did get his eyes open again. His eyes looked worse to me, but he'd also been laying down for 3 hours. We got him to open his eyes (with the help of wet cloths) then he ate a little food.

I woke him up late last night to dose him again with antibiotics. His eyes were again matted shut. I gave him a cool rag to put over his eyes. I don't know if it will help him at all, but it is a token of help I suppose.

I reach the end of this post and as usual I cannot wrap it up like the big time bloggers/writers/etc. seem to be able to do. I will take my son and myself to the doctor and hope we'll be better. We are both to be seen today to check on my (utterly ridiculous) finger and K's potentially serious eyes. I will update this as I can.

At this point though, I see my little boy with his eyes matted shut, who also has 2 infected ears, but complained of little.

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Aweigh post below.

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Updated: K's eyes are looking a lot better today. The doctor said that the antibiotics are working and he should be just fine. Thank goodness.