Tuesday, June 15, 2010

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

16 comments:

  1. I am glad that she is okay in the grand scheme of things. I was getting sick to my stomach reading this post! I think a toddler in glasses is precious! She is so precious!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ok, that is unbelievable. I cannot even believe! I'm so thankful she is okay. And I am glad you made it through. I can't imagine how scary that must've been.

    She's adorable. Y'all have a fun rest of the week.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow Sus ya'll really go all out on the Family Vacay's! Glad all is is OK! I think we may be in Bham next weekend and for sure the weekend of July 9,10,11! When are ya'll going?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Glad she's ok and yes the sight of seeing your baby in a hospital gown is not one I wish to see again myself :( You are too funny with your pictures. My niece had to wear glasses when she was around 2 and she loved them :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. OH sissy I am so glad Ringo is ok!! We may have a new nickname after this situation...I'm thinking Droopy. We love ya'll and miss ya'll and Letta misses her cousin!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh my goodness, that's so scary!!! So glad everything worked out, but what a scare! And bleh, I can't imagine all those nasty germs!
    Oh and by the way, she even looks precious in a hospital gown (although not a fun sight)!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Such a cute little one! I love finding other southern beauties on here to read about all of your lives!!! Cute blog!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Whoa! That's scary! And on vacay no less! I can't believe you were in Jax! If I was still living in Fla., I'd have come and kept y'all company!

    And seriously, Bell's Palsy? What were they doing dropping a scary diagnosis like that, incorrectly????

    Also, I've had something very similar happen to me as an adult. It was diagnosed as an eye cold. It went down and got better after two days. Her's is still inflamed?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Girl, you seriously had me scared there for a minute, give us a warning or something! So glad everything is normal now.

    ReplyDelete
  10. So glad your little sweetie is okay! What a terrible scare!

    ReplyDelete
  11. So super-scary! I had a similar sitch as a baby and the doctors reccomended that my parents put a patch over my stronger eye to strengthen the weaker eye. They never did, because they don't love me enough, but all I have now is an astigmatism and it's super mild and I'm totes okay. And Emmaboo will be totes alright. Girlfriend looks like she was having a blast in the hosp with her mama, and J was playing photog? Daddyrazzi?

    So glad you all are alright and I hope you're having a great vacation!! XOXO

    ReplyDelete
  12. That is so incredibly scary! Yikes! I don't know how I would have handled it but I am so glad she is better. Emma is adorable!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Wow! That is so scary! I'm so glad everything worked out!!

    ReplyDelete
  14. wow, that's intense! My heart was seriously pounding in my chest reading this! I'm so glad she is doing better now! I had a similar crazy diagnosis as an adult and it really was the most ludicrus thing ever but all is well...

    ReplyDelete
  15. Oh my word. I'm glad monkey's okay! It looks like she was hammin it up:) I wonder where she gets that from? :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. I'm glad that she's ok. That doesn't sound like any fun at all.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking the time to comment!