Almost made it through

Paulo caught a cold a week and a half ago. I waited, on pins and needles, to see if it would move into his ears and cause another ear infection. Thankfully it did not. There were a couple of tense moments when he told me his ears hurt, and I cringed, waiting for the fever to spike, but it didn't.

On Sunday we took advantage of what looks like the last dry Portland day before May and went up to our neighborhood school to play soccer and toss the old football around. He's been taking all of his new meds like a champ and really it is quite a list of meds to keep his allergies under control and boost his immune system but still being outside for an hour and a half was tough on him. I noticed him rubbing his eyes quite a bit towards the end. We packed up and went home.

Shortly after that I noticed that his eyes were...a little gooey. Hmmm...allergies? Virus? Bacteria? Not sure....Monday morning came very early, at about 5:15 my 5 year old crashed into my bedroom door. Why did he crash? His eyelids were glued shut. GROAN! I took him back to his bed and got a warm cloth to unstick his eyes and, much to my dismay, he decided to go ahead and start his day. Really freaking early! This was made much worse by the fact that I'd laid there staring at the ceiling until after 12:30 am. I kept him home from school on Monday and watched those eyeballs. By Monday night you could see that both eyes were gooey...sigh.

Tuesday morning my first wake up call was at 2:15, I unstuck his right eyelid and put him back to bed. At 7:30 it was the left eyelid that was glued shut. Bummer. Off to the doctor today, eye infections, both eyes. So now we have eyedrops to do twice a day, two drops in each eye. He's not a fan of the drops. But to be honest, I am so happy we avoided the need for antibiotics! I will take those drops over another 10 day regimen of antibiotics any day.

So, while I'm sad about the eye infections-which will keep him home from school a 3rd day and means he'll miss his birthday at school, not that we do parties or anything but still-I'm happy to know that all the things we're doing between the no milk, the herbs, vitamins and the neti pot are working. It's encouraging and makes me more determined to continue.