Follow - Up Wednesday

So here's another edition of follow-up Wednesday. ...

Yet again back to the whole eye issue with my daughter:

Saturday her eye was a little pink - Sunday it was RED! Again I assumed that since she had been in the pool on Saturday that maybe it was from all the chlorine. Than after nap time I looked at it and realized there was a bit of ooze coming out of it. Crap!!! She really does have pink eye!

So off to Rite-Aid I go to get that prescription filled that the school nurse had sent home. (Not real sure why I kept it since I swore the nurse was crazy for giving it to me anyway!) We start using it right away and than go on to completely sanitize my entire house in hopes that no one else contracts it. I decide to keep her home Monday to make sure she had been on antibiotics for 24 hours. I called her pediatrician's office to confirm that this was correct and she could return to school on Tuesday - which was correct. We actually had a really good mother/daughter day and she was happy to accompany me on my gazillion errands that I had to run.

So Tuesday morning I send her to school. She never even made it to her classroom and at 8:45am (school doesn't even start until 9am) the school nurse was calling me to tell me I had to come pick her up. Of course being the hot head that I am - I was furious. So I get up there and explain that she's been on antibiotics for over 24 hours now and she is fine. I'm told that as long as the eye is red she can't be in school. Now mind you - the child's eye has been red/pink on and off for the past 2 weeks and she was never sent home before!! None the less - I took her home.

(And I still think she only sent her because after I complained a week or so ago - they initiated a new policy where she has to write up a form for every child that comes into the nurses office - even if it is for ice!)

So I decided to call her pediatrician and take her in for a visit just to be on the safe side because even though she had been on the antibiotic for almost 48 hours - there really was no improvement. I get her in for an 11:20 appointment which wasn't horrible but was cutting into Boy 2's nap time. We get there and her doctor says that she isn't convinced that it's pink eye because it hasn't followed any of the patterns of pink eye. (She's had in on and off for 2 weeks already and even without treatment it should have gone away by this time, etc). So she suggests we go to see an ophthalmologist just to be on the safe side. I agree. Next thing I know the nurse is coming back to the room to tell me that they made a 1pm appointment for her. Now this wouldn't be a bad thing - but by this time it's already 11:45, neither Girl or Boy 2 have had lunch yet and the doctor's office is about 30 minutes from where we were.

Of course because we have that wonderful military insurance you have to jump through hoops to see an "outside" doctor. So it's off to the referral management center where we wait for them enter the referral into the system. Than it's off to the Tricare office where we wait again for them to get me a copy of the referral. She tried to tell me it would be several hours and I should come back - and than I told her our appointment was in less than an hour!! So much to my surprise she pleasantly said she would fax it over to the doctor. Wow!!! I was surprised that Kirk Army actually had a process go fairly smooth - I thought for sure we would miss our appointment across town!

So we race out of there and head to the other side of town, when I realize that the kids are starving. So I stop at McDonalds and get them lunch. (Remember: Boy 2 is only 11 months old - but he manged to feed himself Chicken Nuggets as we sped down the road!) We finally make it there are 1:02!

We finally get seen by the doctor and they do all of their tests and she says, "Well, I believe that it may be viral conjunctivitis - even though it doesn't show any of the symptoms of it" and suggests that I stop the antibiotic since it wouldn't help anyway. What the hell does that mean??? Either it is or it isn't?? You can't tell?? You're supposed to be a specialist and I raced to the other side of town for you to say the same thing to me that her pediatrician said!! WTF??
So needless to say - she is still home with me today and I'm probably going to keep her home tomorrow as well. While her eye has drastically cleared up since I stopped the antibiotic (maybe she was having a reaction to that) it is still ever so slightly pink in the outside corner. And I figure the last thing I need is for school to call me again and send her home again - because than I may not be so nice!! There is only 1 1/2 weeks of school left so no need to ruin a good school year now!