Evaline has a bad habit...every six months or so she gets sick in a way that constitutes a mild emergency...and she always does this "after-hours".
The first time she was wheezing, which constituted a late-trip to the walk-in clinic, then the hospital for chest x-rays to rule out pneumonia (which she didn't have). She was assigned to a nebulizer regimen and got better (her first of several illnesses requiring nebulizer treatments...luckily never something like RSV, though).
This past spring she was doing some weird breathing thing. Given her history with lung issues, we went to the walk-in clinic...then to the ER when they couldn't diagnose her, and the clinic was closing. That was a very expensive trip to find out that she was...well, just doing some weird breathing thing. The doctors had no idea what was wrong with her...she was just being weird.
This time....
Thursday afternoon I got a call from her preschool/daycare that she woke up from her nap with a very red eye. Ian picked her up on the early side...and sure enough, bloodshot eye, bright red surrounding it. We called our doctor...and were lucky to get her in that evening (our doctor's office is open until 8...although, because they are open they are often full...hence the walk-in clinics the previous two times). Even luckier, our (amazing) doctor happened to be there (I think to do paperwork...not to see patients, but he came in to see us anyway). The red around her eye was due to rubbing it, but they couldn't figure out what the cause of the problem was, exactly. It could have been a number of things, but she needed to see an eye doctor, who had better tools to diagnose the problem.
We went in to see the eye doctor on Friday morning...but before we did, the real story came out:
Evaline was feeling MUCH better on Friday, but her eye was still red. I told her that we were going to see the doctor again, and she got a BIG smile on her face (she LOVES going to the doctor, as does Cora).
She said: "Cora doesn't have to go to the doctor, because she wasn't playing the game at recess."
Me: "What game was that?"
Evaline: "The wood chip game."
Me: "What is the wood chip game? How do you play that?"
Evaline: "You throw wood chips in the air. I got dust in my eye."
Ah-ha. That little bit of information would have been useful the night before. She had gotten a sliver of wood in her eye. Doctor confirmed, the wood had scratched her cornea. Luckily the eye heals quickly, and she really wasn't in any pain by Friday morning. She was given an antibiotic ointment to put in her eye (not her favorite part of the day), to make sure that the wood and scratch don't cause an infection.
She has been informed that it is not in her best interest to throw wood chips in the future.
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