Everly, and the emergency room

If there is one place you never want to be with your baby, it is probably the emergency room.  Unfortunately yesterday, that is exactly where we ended up.  Our first Saturday off together as a family in ages started out as normal.  Morning visit with the mr.'s parents who were up for the weekend, and then lunch with my mom.  We had about two hours to kill before we headed to a going away party for our friends, so the three of us and Everly made our way to the local antique mall. People were doting over how cute E was looking at the antiques, and mom and I even mentioned how calm she is when we are antiquing.  There are just so many amazing things for her to look at, and I really do think it is the only time she is fairly quiet and still.  Mom had Everly in her arms as we made it to the end of the first row of the antique mall, when something just changed, in a second.  Everly went from smiling and looking at everything, to having her head down, her eyes looked like they were glazing over, and one of her eyes became bright red.  Within moments, her right eye was puffy, and red blotches appeared all over the right side of her face.  Even her little nose had a red blotch on it.  At this point, I'm trying not to panic as the four of us leave the place quickly.  I swear people were still trying to say hi to my cute baby, clearly they didn't read the look on my face of pure terror.  By the time we made it to the door, it was decided we were going to the hospital around the corner.

The car ride was thankfully only five minutes or so, and she seemed like she was doing a little better. Still all red and puffy, but she would give her daddy a giggle in the back seat.  We tried to calm down, and decided to try the urgent care they had at the hospital instead of going straight to the ER.  While we were getting checked in at urgent care, my mom grabbed Everly so I could have my hands, but seeing her poor little face made me start crying right there in the office, so I took her back in my arms so I couldn't see how bad she looked.  Everything was happening so fast.  She hadn't eaten anything different for lunch, and hadn't touched anything at the antique mall, so I was at a lost.  And of course, because this is my baby we are talking about, my mind just started to wander off.  Any weird thing that I have ever heard about happening to a baby, well yes, that was what was hitting me.  I was trying not to panic, but she was just fine, like ten minutes before, what had happened?

Well, thankfully the nurses at urgent care let us see the doctor who just happened to be walking in the hallway right away, because they had a two hour wait to get in officially.  However, it is never good when the urgent care doctor says we should take her to the ER instead because she didn't feel confident to treat her there.  What?!?  She started mentioning infections, and that the hospital could do blood work if necessary.  Um, okay, freak out legitimate at this point.  Thankfully, the young nurse [my mom even commented the girl didn't look old enough to have a job] walked us to the back door, and showed us we just had to cross a small parking lot to get to the ER.  Okay, well that at least was good. Another short wait, and we were talking with the triage RN.  They were all so calm, and I was trying to be calm, but something was just not right.  After waiting for about thirty minutes or so, Everly did another little episode that was just making me feel like something was really wrong.  I can't explain her look, other than she closes her eyes, buries her head, gets a very dazed look about her, and then looks like she wants to fall asleep.  In my book, that just doesn't sit well.  They take her temperature, and all of her vitals seem normal, or at least I assume they did, because no one said anything else.  Finally, they tell us that we are just waiting for a bed in the ER to open up, and then they will take us back.  I also got the okay to let her sleep, if she wanted to.  She didn't.  At this point, she's fussy, and I'm scared and exhausted, and we still had no answers.

Finally, they call Everly's name, and we see the ER doctor within minutes.  He asks us all of the normal questions, and I kept emphasizing the fact that this happened so suddenly.  And that no, she hadn't been sick.  He starts pushing that she must be allergic to mangoes, and I'm just not accepting that answer.  Thankfully, he also wanted to check to make sure she hadn't hurt her eye somehow.  The doctor put dye in her eye, and then used a black light to see if there were any scratches.  And man, you didn't need a medical license to see what had happened.  Glowing across her entire cornea was a giant scratch.  We were prescribed antibiotics to stop the eye from getting infected, Children's Motrin for the pain, because of course, everyone had to remind us how painful these injuries are.  Seriously people, I don't need you to remind me how much pain my baby must be in, I've got that seared into my brain already!  We also were scheduled a follow up visit with an Opthalmologist because of the severity of the scratch, unless it heals properly, it could affect her vision.  Oh wonderful.

We tried to go to the party we had planned last night, but it turned out, the mr. and I were toast.  We ended up dropping off the fifteen pounds of pasta salad I had made in the morning, and went home. Our first attempt at the eye drops [which we have to put in every two hours while she's awake] was alright.  And she even seemed to like the Children's Motrin.  But since that first time, things have progressively gone downhill.  She shuts that little eye so tight that there is no chance the whole drop is getting in there.  So I just hope enough of the medicine is getting into her little body to let her heal properly.

We still have no idea how she scratched her cornea so badly.  The doctor even looked at her nails, and he wasn't positive that they were the culprit.  So today I am going to try to take it easy.  I was so thankful that this whole ordeal happened when I had not only daddy support, but grammy support too. If this happened when I was all alone, it would have been pretty scary, even more than it already was. We also have learned that our daughter does not cry when she's in pain.  Instead, that little head goes down, weird faces begin, and glassy eyes are her way of telling us she is hurting.  So, at least we know that.

And with that, I will say our little Everly can take all positive thoughts [or prayers] that she will recover with limited pain, no infections, and no loss of vision.  That is our hope.