Last Wednesday, Erika woke up complaining that her eye hurt and looking like this.
I took her into the doctor figuring she had some kind of weird eye thing, like pink eye, and was fully expecting to be given drops to help her feel better. As soon as the doctor came in, she immediately put on gloves and a mask and I knew things were probably going downhill from there. After her examine, she determined Erika had pneumonia (she had been coughing and having cold-like symptoms for a week) and an eye infection that required IMMEDIATE attention. As in, we ran across the street to the pharmacy to fill a prescription for antibiotics to try and kill the infection right away. So I got the antibiotics in her, took her back to her Grandma's house where Laurel and Levi were waiting so she could rest, and grabbed Laurel and Levi to take back to the doctor to get checked out.
They got to wear these attractive masks since their sister had pneumonia and they also had a cough. The doctor looked at them and determined they also had pneumonia. Awesome. So, I went back to the pharmacy to fill two more prescriptions and prayed that my babies would heal! After resting most of the day and taking two doses of antibiotics, Erika's eye still wasn't healing. I took her back to the doctor at 4pm and by 5:30pm she was admitted to the hospital.
This is her loving her hosptial stay! She thought she was in some kind of awesome hotel! The doctors admitted her not for the pneumonia, but for the eye swelling. They were monitoring her because with the pain in her eye and the swelling that was not going down, they were afraid the infection was in the muscle behind the eye which could damage her vision if not treated properly. Matt took her to the hospital, my mom came to stay with the little sick people, and I grabbed some necessities for a hospital stay. Erika wanted Daddy to stay with her that night but I was there while she had an IV put in her arm and got settled into her room. She was so incredibly brave about the IV! She hardly cried and the only problem she really had was the amount of blood that came out. She received a Polly Pocket from the treasure box for her bravery.
The next morning when I came back to the hospital, Erika reported that she got to eat 3 pancakes, IN BED, and Daddy didn't even have to make them! She was all smiles....watching movies all day, receiving presents from people, coloring. She thought she was on vacation. The swelling in her eye still wasn't going down, however, so the doctor ordered a CT scan and another night in the hosptial to receive IV antibiotics. I stayed with her the second night and Aunt Sarah came to visit and bring milkshakes. And she got a check up from Dr. Erika while she was there.
The second morning we were there, the doctor came in and told us Erika's CT scan was normal and the infection in her eye was not in the muscle, but closer to the skin layer, and we could go home! We were home by 10:30 Friday morning.
And, 48 hours after it all began, we were on our way to returned health! And today, we are on our last day of antibiotics and perfectly normal children again!
