The School Nurse Called. Again.

So far, nobody else has contracted pink eye. I *think* we are past the incubation stage for new cases to erupt, and so far all eyes are beautifully clear, so that may or may not mean we're out of the woods as far as new cases go. Only time will tell, I guess. And stressing never helps anything, so I'm not. I did, however, wash Micah's bedding in hot water. With bleach. And I'm religiously administering medication to his pink eyes.  And let me tell you, that's a feat.


See those squinched up eyes? Take a closer look, so you can appreciate the level of squinch. THAT is what I'm trying to pry open every time I need to get salve-like stuff into them. My husband said I was crazy for asking for the salve instead of the drops, but the drops needed administered 3-4 times daily, whereas the salve was twice daily. It was a no-brainer on my part. Mr. Octopus Arms is a big boy, and freakishly strong. It's all I can do to wrestle him down, hold him still, keep his hands away, and pry his eyes open. I may or may not have, on occasion, actually touched his eyeball with the end of the salve tube. And I know that would feel just horrible (read, painful) but I'm being honest in telling you that I'm lucky to get the meds in. I figure a poked eye that heals is better than letting pink eye run it's course. Dr. Google tells me that it would generally heal itself in 7-10 days, but I know firsthand that it's just an irritation. Although having a scratched cornea could be far worse.

So now that I've argued against myself for actually giving the boy medication to clear up his lovely case of conjunctivitis, let's move on.

School was cancelled due to weather on Monday, so that was a bonus on our part. Micah has already missed ten days of school, and now he'll need a doctor's excuse if he misses any more. Except that I haven't sent any, because sometimes he just sleeps in because he's tired, and it counts as a missed day even if we get him to school an hour or so late. And while he was really sick this time, I didn't think to ask the ER doc for a school excuse. Not that I really care anyway.

But his eyes were still rather angry looking on Tuesday, so I kept him home with me and we had a wonderful mommy-Micah day. (I miss those. A lot.) I know that if he's on meds for 24 hours, he's not contagious, but I also know that if I saw a kid whose eyes looked like his did on Tuesday, I'd be skeptical about letting my kid anywhere near that mess. But Wednesday morning he was finally healed. Pretty much. I mean, the one eye was just a bit red around it, like he'd been crying, but not really bad at all. And of course they were a tad watery because I'd just pried them open to squeeze salve into them, but otherwise, he was definitely good to go back to school. And because I felt like a large piece of sick, I went back to bed after getting Micah on the bus. Judge if you will, but I do this about twice a year. I'm a morning person, and once I'm up, no matter how early, I'm up. That right there is a testament to how cruddy I felt.

I was 30 minutes into a fitful sleep when the phone rang. It was the school nurse. Again. The school nurse calls me roughly once weekly with some malady that Micah has. The last one was dry knees. Yes, you read that right. Dry knees is now a reason to call home. Before that was the rash he had on his backside. This was discovered because he itched himself. A lot. I was called about this no less than three times. We both discussed how there was little to do for it that wasn't already being done, and yet, I got called regardless. So I was not surprised to hear the nurse's voice on the other end of the phone. I was irritated that my rest was interrupted. And even more so by the fact that she asked, "are you aware that Micah has pink eye?"

I sent a hand written excuse in his backpack saying that he was absent the day before because he had pink eye. OF COURSE I KNEW. Really, that's all she wanted to know. And she didn't even ask me to come pick him up.

*sigh*

Some days I just shake my head at the wonder of things. I'll do that tomorrow, when I'm feeling better.



1 comment:

wendy said...

I hope you and Micah are feeling better.