Conjunctivitis

or pinkeye. Take your pick - when your sweet little baby comes to you in the morning with both eyes swollen shut and crusty green/yellow snot oozing from whatever part of the eye is still OPEN...and says "Mommy, my eyes are broke," your heart sort of goes out to her.

So, at this point, with a two year old, not understanding why her eyes are swollen and gooked shut - there are two solutions...take a warm wet washcloth and try to soften the gook out of her eye - or - hold her head under the bathtub - okay - NOT that, but you might as well as much screaming and gnashing of teeth happens from a warm wet washcloth rubbing against crusty snotted eye gook...that stuff can CUT, ya know?!

Thankfully - the doctor doesn't need to see the eye to know it's pink - so they called in a prescription.

What I don't fully understand is she's on antibiotics for an ear infection - so how could she get an eye infection while ON antibiotics? I'll never get it! Nonetheless...with pinkeye comes a lot of sanitation, washing hands, pillow cases, sheets - bedding - hands, face, siblings hands...just everything clean.

I asked the doctor if I could give her an oral anti-biotic for this eye thing - apparently no, but I did get some good tips on how to correctly administer eye drops to a two year old. Here are the instructions the doctor gave me.

1) Lay child's head, face up, in your crotch.
2) Place your thighs over child's arms to keep them from disrupting your aim.
3) Cross your lower legs over top of child's legs to keep them from kicking and moving.
4) Tighten your thighs to hold child's head from turning away from the drops.
5) With your forefinger and thumb, pry child's squinted eye open.
6) With your other hand, administer one to two drops into affected eye.
7) When CPS comes to your door to take your child away because 8 neighbors called on a screaming baby alarm, give them THIS doctor's note.

Wouldn't it be easier just to add "put a sock in child's mouth" to avoid the whole CPS scandal?

I tell you - eye drops are heart breaking!

Can't the conjuctivitis just work itself out - or would that blind the child?

OH - and for the record - my BIL is an optometrist and said that you can use a NEW tube (or clean tube) of POLYSPORIN (not neosporin) to put in the eye...if for some reason your doctor feels like they need proof of the green gook and swollen look...even though the tube says not for use in eyes, it's apparently safe...so while the drops are only $3, and the tube of polysporin is closer to $10, it should only take one overnight treatment of polysporin to rid the child of conjuctivitis. I don't know how long the drops would take - it says to use 4 times a day for 5 days - which is - 20 child torture sessions...hmmmm, you weigh the dangers!