Pink eye for the little guy

Last weekend we noticed Jack had mucus coming out of his eyes. I had never seen someone with pink eye before but I was pretty sure that was it. It's pretty gross. Compared to everything else he had had this past month, it was no big deal. I remember a few years ago, a friend of mine going through medical school had a professor who explained various illnesses and medical problems using his own kids as examples. My friend commented that between 4 kids most common childhood illnesses and accidents were represented. I thought that family must have had bad luck but now I see how that could be a totally normal experience with 4 kids.. which is why I will never have 4.. that sounds like total insanity to me... in fact, 2 sounds like total insanity.

Since being sick, Jack has not wanted to sleep in his own bed. It's been very rare that he doesn't just go right to sleep but for the past few weeks he has really put up a fight most nights. I rocked him to sleep the other night but as soon as I put him down in his crib, he started crying. When I picked him up, he fell back to sleep but when I started to lay him down in our bed he opened his eye as if to make sure he was in the right place. Sure enough, he slept really well in our bed.

Luckily these past few nights, he has gone back to his normal sleeping pattern.

Now that I have just re-read all this, I feel like this is a perfect example of a story that would have bored me immensely 2 years ago. However, now it's so interesting to me that I feel like I need to record it. Maybe Jack will enjoy it later? Here he is digging story time:

Summer time!

A few weekends before ER weekend was memorial day and the weather was amazing. We went to lots of local parks to celebrate. This is one of our favorites because of the cool water feature.




Current J monkey health update: all is well. I thank the universe for my health insurance, the world class children's hospital a few miles from my home, and my pals who brought pizza over, kept us company, and made our chaotic weekend seem ok.

The ER

Since working in an ER, I have often said that I would never go to an ER (or take my child to one) unless we were so sick we had to be taken by medics. I would formally like to retract every "never" statement I have ever made as I clearly made those statements when I had no children.

Jack has had a rough few weeks. He got an ear infection in Arizona.. where I unfortunately went to the urgent care that exemplified our stratified health care system.. this place being on the bad side. Then Jack got his mmr/varicella shots last week and I thought he was having a reaction to the shot last week because he was incredibly miserable. Then Friday he started vomiting and today he could barely open his eyes because he was so dehydrated. So we spent the morning at a posh ER (exemplifying the finest $$ can buy) where we got medicine that will hopefully help us keep him hydrated.

I have become very accustomed to sleepless nights and not having the social life or freedom I used to have. Those aspects of having a child don't bother me at all anymore. However, when Jack is sick I am very troubled by how little control I have. I become panicked and very sad when he is suffering. I don't know how to deal with it gracefully yet.