did he get ANY good from me?!

My poor little baby. He got all the crappy things from me. Sensitive skin (as you saw in the previous post), and now allergies.

Last week I was privileged to be a labor coach for a friend of mine from high school. She had a beautiful baby girl, Elana Rose. Wednesday, Roman got to spend a few hours at my moms while I went to Sarah's (my friend) at her request to help give Elana her first bath. It was so awesome and weird at the same time. Awesome because i guess I'm a somewhat 'seasoned' mother, but weird cause Elana is SO SMALL!! And what's weirder is that Roman was smaller than Elana when he was born... now look at him! :)

Anyway. Sarah has 2 cats and a dog. What I forgot is that I'm allergic to cats, although, I remembered as soon as my lips began to itch and feel as though they were on fire! I can take it though. I'm used to it. Yeah, it's uncomfortable, but whatever. What I failed to realize is that I would be covered in cat-ness all day, thus transferring it to whomever and whatever I came into contact with that day.

I get back to my mom's house and forget all about the cats until I notice Roman rubbing his eye profusely. I was about to cut my mom's hair when I looked over at him and dropped everything. His left eye was swelling and he had welts all over the place. I immediately called first nurse and she told me to take him to the doctor right away. I called the doctor, told them his symptoms and was told a nurse would get back to me. Feeling a sense of urgency, I asked how long it would take to get a call back and the receptionist told me that she would make it a priority. Well, I wasn't about to sit and wait for a phone call (sometimes it takes them a while to get back to you)! I packed Romans things up, got him in his car seat and drove to the clinic. We got in right away, but not with our normal pediatrician -which I wasn't tooooo thrilled about, but I'd rather get right in.

I explained to her that I'm allergic to cats and I had been around them and have a gut instinct that this is what is causing the reaction. She looked him over and determined that he has PINK EYE!!! what?! are you sure? are you serious?! are you sure? really? hmm. I was and still am skeptical about his diagnosis. She told me that if it were an allergic reaction to cats that it probably wouldn't be localized in just one eye, and the tissue underneath (inside) his eye was super red which is consistent with pink eye. (yeah, but he's also been rubbing it for the last 45 minutes to an hour...). I kept asking her if she was sure it was pink eye. She kept saying yes. I kept telling her that I'm allergic to cats, and this hasn't happened ever before, and the only difference in the day was Roman being exposed to cats, through me. She told me again that it was pink eye. !!!!!! ok fine. Instead of prescribing the usual eye drops for it, she wanted to put him on amoxicillian. Weird, but okay. I guess that saves me the trouble of trying to put eye drops in his eyes. thanks.

So we leave and head to the drug store to get his medicine. I decided to ask the pharmacist what he thought (knowing he couldn't diagnose anything...but just for some perspective). And I talked to my friend Laura who is a pink eye expert. ;) (2 babes = lots of pink eye). She said it didn't sound like pink eye, and the pharmacist agreed.

In any case. Roman is on antibiotics for 5 days, cause apparently he has pink eye.

I now know how it feels to know your child better than anyone, and not have the person who can pretty much save a life (doctor), listen to you. It is the most frustrating feeling in the world.

*Oh and by the way, as I was packing things up to leave the doctors office is when the nurses finally called me back....*

at the doc's in the waiting room-what you don't see is that it's incredibly red and still has welts all over, but you can see how swollen it was. :(

before getting checked

on the way home.