My Poor Monkey...

So, we have had an interesting couple of days on our vacation. On Sunday, this was my sweet monkey.

Sassing as usual after eating some carrots.

Close up of the sass britches. Notice her left eye. All is well.

Again, sassing and being presh. Riding in an awesome wagon
that Auntie Jill let us borrow. Loo will be getting one for her

first birthday!

On Monday morning when Emma woke up, her eye was all smooshed and droopy looking. We just thought she had slept on it wrong. We decided to give it a few hours. By 10:30, it was clear that her eye was not just smooshed from sleeping on it. It honestly looked like a lazy eye. But it was just all of a sudden. So, I called my insurance and found a place to take her down here to get the eye looked at.


We went to the only urgent care on the island that took my insurance. It was in a Walmart. I'm not judging, I'm just trying to set the scene-imagine the smallness of the "clinic" once we got there. You take me, J, Emma, and a doctor, plus a patient table thing, chair, and a sink/trashcan/biohazard contraption and cram it into a 5x7 room and it's really quite Clark W. Griswold.

So, the doctor was an older woman-she took one look at Emma and did a few eye movement things-and promptly diagnosed her with Bell's Palsy. I almost passed out. That is some serious shiz. I was about to hyperventilate in the postage stamp sized room. My hubby is very hypocondriac-ish and was also about to lose it. I had to pull it together, step outside, and call our pediatrician. The urgent care doctor wanted us to drive to Jacksonville, about 30 minutes away, to go to the Children's Hospital immediately for consult/diagnosis. My pedi said, "Do what they say and go."

We get all loaded up and start driving down to Jacksonville-and we are both about to have panic attacks and are both imagining the worst. We finally get to the hospital and are directed to the children's ER. Of course, it is the nastiest place imaginable-and Emma dropped both of her pacis within 5 seconds of arrival. I was not trusting a paci wipe to do the job-I needed a sink with HOT water and soap. Anyway, we finally got called back to triage and were broken in-then sent to a room.

They told me to put my angel in a gown. See below.

I hope to God I never have to see my child in a hospital gown again. It was agonizing.
She looks very pained, right??

Mommy trying to keep it together while seeing her
blessed baby in a hospital gown.

Now, we originally left for the urgent care doctor at 10:30-her naptime is around 10. So, at this point it was about 1:00 and she still hadn't napped all day. Imagine the fun times we were having. Me, not wanting her to touch anything in that room, and her wanting to explore everything in that room. Blech. Finally, we were seen and the ER doctor said it was NOT Bell's Palsy. She didn't really see anything, and honestly the eye was already looking better. She checked all of the neurological things and Emma passed. We were at this point concerned about a tumor or some other brain issue manifesting itself through the eye. That was not the case. Thank God!

The ER doctor couldn't pinpoint any specific issue, but had several ideas of what could be happening (infection, stye, etc). She suggested we come back to Jax today to see a leading ophthalmologist and get his opinion.

We arrived this morning at Nemours Children's Center in Jacksonville, and let me tell you, once again I am eternally grateful that my baby was just here for an eye exam. Because I saw some sick and badly hurt angels. It was heartbreaking! This place was amazing and ran like a well oiled machine! We got there and Emma seemed to need a time out. :D

She wanted to go in the "Isolation" room-she kept banging on the door and at one point layed down and LOOKED under the door crack-what the???

We went back to an exam room and briefly assessed that Emma's vision was indeed working and up to par. Then, they had to dilate her eyes. She did a great job! No tears. Srsly, I was impressed! After 30 minutes of Emma becoming part owl, we came back to the room for another exam.

Me acting like I'm 4. Playing with all the doctorly junk.

Me going for a "Boo-sad face" and achieving a NeeNee Leakes
"I know you didn't" face. Yikers...

Our doctor came in and checked her out-he couldn't find any reason for the droopy eye. He did however diagnose Emmabear with hyperopia, or farsightedness. He said to get her eyes checked in about a year-she may have to get glasses around age 2. The hyperopia could cause her to have crossed eyes if we don't get it re-assessed and corrected. Hmm, a toddler in glasses-that should be fun...

But, in all seriousness, I am so, so thankful that is all that was wrong with my child. Because I was doing some serious bargaining, praying, etc yesterday when that lady told me that she thought Emma had some viral infection causing paralysis in her face. Not cool. But, I guess she was trying to be conservative and didn't want us to blow it off as a stye or something???

So, we came back and lived it up, Griswold style, on the beach for the rest of the day! Then, we went back to downtown Fernandina and ate at a craptastic restaurant-I'm not even going to mention the name-and then walked around and window shopped. Fun times. Glad all the dramz is over.

More from Clark, Ellen, Audrey and Rusty tomorrow!

xoxo