It has been a sad couple of days in the Cooper household! Lottie has a double ear infection. It started on Saturday. I noticed that she had just a small amount of greenish / yellowish discharge coming from her eye, but just assumed that it was sleepy or that she had gotten something in her eye. Sunday rolled around and it progressively got worse and worse. Throughout the day, I could not keep her eye clean enough. Every time I cleaned it with warm water, 2 seconds later, more discharge was coming out. I finally said to heck with this and called the triage line at Matthews Children's Clinic. I got a nurse on the line and we discussed her condition / symptoms for over 20 minutes. We thought that because she wasn't pulling at her ears or putting her fingers in her ears that it might be an eye infection / pink eye vs. an ear infection. Thankfully, the pharmacy was still open and we were able to go down and pick up the drops that were called in. However, the nurse said that whatever she had was probably contagious, therefore she could not go to school the next morning.
The Drops!!!!!!! Do you have any idea how difficult it is to put drops in a baby's eye? Awful! She was crying and squirming (clearly did not like the idea of anything going in her eye - I don't blame her one bit!). I felt so bad and wanted to cry myself but knew that we had to get the drops in. We finally managed to get them in after numerous failed attempts - most of it going on her cheek.
Throughout the night on Sunday, I was constantly up checking on her after every cough, sniffle, you name it. Not to mention I had the deadly vaporizer going that sounds like boiling water next to her bed (see previous post). By the next morning, her little eye ball was so pitiful. She could barely open her left eye. I waited until the doctor's office opened at 8:00 a.m. and called to see if I could get her in. Thankfully her doctor had an opening at 9:00 a.m.
Before her examination with the doctor, we jumped on the scale. I was pretty excited to see how much she weighed since we hadn't weighed in since 6/28/11. She weighed 15 lbs, 6 oz. She has gained a whooping 2 lbs since June.
When the doctor came into the exam room, he didn't waste any time looking in her ears. He said she had a double ear infection. Of course me being me said, "But I clean her ears out religiously after every bath every day." ( I didn't want him to think my baby had dirty ears). He laughed and said that had nothing to do with it, that a lot of babies get ear infections. He prescribed some antibiotics and sent us on our way. She has to take a 1/2 teaspoon twice a day for 10 days.
I think the hardest thing about all of this is knowing that my baby does NOT feel good. I hate to see her coughing or sniffling and having goo come out of her eyes. It makes me want to cry.
I really can't wait to see her later and am praying that she has had a better day today.
Will keep you posted!!
T
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