Pink Eye, Among Other Things

I just took my first ever eye drops for pink eye. Whee! There's a milestone I could have lived without.

I've been sick with an icky sore throat/head cold/chest cold thing for going on 4 weeks, which has completely sucked, but the pink eye thing is new. Adds something, feeling like you have gravel in your eyes all the time. Takes your mind off of struggling for breath through a solidly-clogged nose and trying to keep your lungs from flying out in a coughing fit. And swallowing through the ring of fire in your throat. Eye gravel! New! Annoying! Different!

I caught the pink eye from the kiddies, of course. The Little Miss succumbed to her first-ever cold last Wednesday, complete with copious goop issuing out of her eyes and nose. Being the loving little girl that she is, she shared with her brother and by Friday we were quite the snotty, itchy, coughy, cranky little group. Poor Mr. Me, he's had to come home to all us goopy crabby-ass people at night, and he's been pitching right in. He even took night duty last night so I could finally get a full night of sleep. That, of course, is not happening tonight as he went to bed at 5, but at least I got one night.

The kids are actually holding up pretty well. The Little Miss has been a trooper - she has barely been fussy, just looks pathetic with her little red watery eyes and nose. Occasionally she gets frustrated because she can't breathe and eat at the same time, but can ya' blame her? She finally appears to be on the mend, so I've been changing and washing linens like mad, and Clorox wiping everything that stands still because I DON'T want her or anyone else to get reinfected. It would be double super nice if Mr. Me doesn't get infected at all. He has bad eyesight and only wears contacts, so if he gets pink eye he'll essentially be blind for a week. *shudder* I don't even want to contemplate that.

The Little Man has been doing ok too, but, as the resident drama king, he must make the most of every situation. There has been a lot of "Mommy, hold me like a baby" and over-dramatic tantrums for spectacularly stupid reasons. He has been funny - he has to go "Check on Little Miss, check on her pink eye." When he gets over to her, he takes a look and says "Yep, still pink!" And, he gets mad when I tell him he has pink eye, because his eye is NOT pink, it's black. I guess it sounds more manly or something.

I worry about him, though, because he's had two or three nosebleeds every day since he got this cold. He is prone to nosebleeds, but this is kind of ridiculous. When his nose is stuffed up already, then starts bleeding, it's hard to figure out if he should blow then try to get it to clot, or not blow. It's also hard to keep those antsy little fingers out of the nose when it's bothering him which, of course, causes more bleeding. The nosebleed he had tonight lasted for an hour and a half - I was just about to call Ask a Nurse when it finally died down. If this keeps up it's definitely another call to the doctor come Monday morning. I'm going to have to put them on speed-dial.

Eh. These are the weeks where you really earn your mother's day gift.