The Great Pink Eye Experiment

I work with several (older) men who like to claim “their kids were never sick”, “their kids never went to the doctor”, “I haven’t used a sick day ever in 40 years of working here”, “ I only took off the day my kids were born and then I was back to work the next day” , etc.  Ok looking at that list I realize anyone who wants to claim they were back to work the day after their wife gave birth is an idiot.  Why I took their advice I will never know.  Surprisingly all of these men are still married.  Either they really didn’t do all that they claimed or their wives are more tolerant than I am.  Jay at least stayed with me for a couple of days.  Then he was right back to contest season the Saturday after Cade was born.  BUT he does use sick days when the kids are sick so I’m not the one doing all of the work. 

So I had all of these past conversations  rolling around in my head when Camryn came down with Pink Eye last week.  I decided to wait it out.  I will admit it now.  Not my best parenting moment.  But some of my reasoning was that I had those stupid men’s voices rolling around in my head….I had already missed two days of work because Camryn was sick and Cade and I had to have fillings….Jay was gone….I didn’t want to do eye drops by myself….The list goes on and on.  Instead I cleaned the gunk from Camryn’s eyes and sent her off each morning.  One of our sitters girls also had it so everyone had already been exposed.  By Friday her eyes were looking better.  I patted myself on the back for not being a crazy, over cautious parent.  Camryn was doing just fine….

Then Saturday morning my eyes were matted shut.  By Sunday it had spread to both of my eyes.  They were red, swollen and oozing crud all through Sunday School.  Someone asked me afterwards if I was all right.  I know it looked like I was crying.  It was pretty much a horrifying experience.  Light hurt them, they were itchy.  And I made Camryn go a full week like that???  I planned to get myself to the doctor Monday.

Then Monday morning rolled around.  My eyes seemed better.  They weren’t matted shut.  I didn’t think they looked quite as red.  I thought I was getting over it and didn’t plan to call the doctor.  Then while I was in a staff meeting a co-worker asked me in front of everyone if I had Pink Eye.  Then another co-worker said she had wondered the same thing but that she was going to ask me in private.  Another one said he knew something was wrong but didn’t know if I had been crying so he decided not to say anything at all. 

After the meeting I consulted Web MD again.  I normally avoid Web MD because it freaks me out.  But I figured there was no way itchy eyes could result in something more serious leading to death so I took my chances.  I had looked it up last week and it talked about the two different types – viral and bacterial.  It said you could get over it without going to the doctor.  When I looked at it Monday morning a different article popped up and it said you should go so you don’t get permanent eye damage….wash your pillow case every day….don’t share towels, etc.  I realized I wasn’t dealing with just Pink Eye.  It was an epidemic.   I called the doctor.

I left the doctors office feeling like an idiot but with prescriptions for both me and Camryn.  Since she woke up with crusty eyes again the next morning  I’m glad I went.   I felt even more dumb when I paid for both prescriptions….$8.  I just  hope Jay doesn’t get it.  I will never hear the end of it if he catches it to. 

 Note to self…never trust the men in the office or Web MD to give out sound medical advice.