It’s going to be a long day.
At 5:08 am I was jolted awake by the sound of JediBoy crying. When I could finally make out a few of the words it was Mommy, I can’t see out of this eye.
I held him, rocked him, and gently wiped at his eye. Clear, sticky discharge in the corner and on the eyelashes that had made him unable to open the eye very far and that had blurred his vision too. It only took a minute or two to clean him up, and then he happily snuggled up on Daddy’s shoulder and the two of them went right back to sleep.
What? Here I am, body full of adrenaline. Go back to SLEEP?
Instead, I came downstairs and checked my old standard, Dr. Koop’s Self-Care Adviser, which said pretty plainly - conjunctivitis. Though we’ve had lots of friends over the past few years who struggled with pinkeye, we’d always escaped. Until now, probably.
It is possible that this is an allergic response. PisecoDad frequently had swelling/discharge from one or both eyes as an allergic response as a teenager, and JediBoy has a severe dust and dust mite allergy. He could have rubbed an allergen into his eye at bedtime last night with this result.
I had myself almost convinced of that, until I noticed that the eyelashes on my left eye were a little sticky. Cue intense scrutiny in bathroom mirror. Does the eye look a little bloodshot? And why is it suddenly burning and itchy? I am so prone to the power of suggestion. Maybe I just have sympathetic pinkeye.
Sigh. So this morning, once JediBoy is awake again, we’ll have to do a more careful check. If it looks at all suspicious, I’ll have to keep him home from his soccer game, which would be miserable for him. And tonight is my choir concert, which I cannot miss because our ranks have dwindled so sharply - there were only 31 at dress rehearsal last night. Our director would never forgive me for missing a concert because of pinkeye, real or sympathetic.
Did I mention it’s going to be a long day?
Ah, to cheer myself up, here is JediBoy’s story from yesterday. When I questioned him about his speech patterns, he told me that this is how a kid talks, someone younger than me, like two or one even.
Submarine sank down from the water. Submarine didn’t want to sink, it wanted to float. But by mistakealy, a diver took the corks out of the pontoons, the pontoons filled with water, and they sank down to the floor of the ocean. Why they didn’t want to sink is because they would see sharks.
Submarine bobbing on waves. Submarine far away in the distance. Me can’t barely see it, because it’s in the distance.
The end.
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