First Trip to Urgent Care

(Don't worry - very minor and everyone is okay!)

Last Saturday was a great day, with a happy toddler who devoured countless sweet potato pancakes that morning, loved his swimming lessons, enjoyed a good amount of time running around outside, and slept a decent amount of time during his nap.  All was right with the world.

But when he woke up we noticed that his right eye was swollen and red.  JB also seemed to be bothered by it, rubbing and scratching and tearing up.  We went on a loooong walk to a park one neighborhood over, and it just got worse and worse.  Since the trees are blooming and allergies are starting to flare up for every resident in Atlanta, I chalked it up to that.  (Plus, the white of his eye was not red and there was no gunk - I obviously thought of pink eye but ruled it out.  My mother even suggested pink eye, but I wasn't convinced.)

We decided he was miserable enough to warrant some allergy meds (which my doctor said was fine last visit, since he seems to have inherited his parents sensitivity to pollen), but of course all the meds say "no" for under 2.  I figured a quick call into the nurse advice line was a good idea, and she calmly listened to my explanation of symptoms.  Then she hit me with "ma'am, this doesn't sound like allergies. Honestly I can't rule out periorbital cellulitis, which gets really bad, really fast".  She recommended urgent care, right away.

Hum.  Not good. Not how we anticipated spending our Saturday afternoon/evening. However, we were not going to be those parents who let their child potentially suffer something terrible.  Off we went!

"Urgent Care?  That sounds like a rocking Saturday night, Dad!"

Of course when we arrived JB was already on the mends. His eye looked better, he was energized by the new environment and plethora of toys, and proceeded to run around like a wild child.  Plus mouth every single thing he could get his hands on, ensuring that, if he didn't have an infection going in, he would definitely have one going out.

Yea germs!

Literally climbing the walls...

Fortunately the on-call doctor happened to be a pediatrician, who laughed when I said "we're afraid he has periorbital cellulitis".  He spent 2 seconds looking at JB's eye before he said "folks, he's got an early case of pink eye".

Hum.  This mama obviously has a little bit of learning to do when it comes to medical issues.

We left with a diagnosis, prescription, and a tired little guy.  Good news is that drops are already working and his eye (3 days later) looks perfect.  Bad news is that we still have 4 days to go, Lord have mercy. You definitely earn a special Motherhood badge when you wrestle a toddler three times a day for eye drops.

One urgent care trip down, hopefully very, very few to go over JB's lifetime.  (And if it's only for an easy case like pink eye , I'm good with that!)