I have posted before about how goopy Preston's eye has been. It started at 14 days old, the day before he was discharged from the hospital, and also the last day of his 2nd round of antibiotics (the ones for his PICC line infection). The nurse there said it was probably from his feeding tube and that it would clear up. A few days after getting him home it went into his other eye too. Since then it's been on and off, both eyes. Well it got kind of bad, lots of discharge, and I started putting breast milk in it and it seemed to get better after a few more days. It's been better now at least 3-4 days, I think a little longer, I can't remember for sure the last time I have had to clean them.
Last night he woke around 9:30-10 for a feed and his eyes were suddenly VERY goopy again, worse than it had ever been. I cleaned them out and he nursed just like 2min and went back to sleep. He woke up again a little while later and it was really bad again, got him back to sleep. He slept until Mark got home from his movie, a little after 1am. He started crying and Mark went to get him, we were up watching Big Brother, and he says to me "baby, come here his eye is very swollen" and I could just hear the panic in his voice. So I asked how bad it was so I knew what to expect when I looked at him. I went and looked and it was so bad. His eye was bulging (or looked like it) it looked like it was about to just pop out of his head, I have never seen an eye swell like that, it was awful! I could tell Mark was very scared, he was talking to him trying to calm him down and I could hear how he was about to cry. So I went and threw clothes on to take him to the ER. While I was d'oing that Mark got him calmed down and his eye didn't look AS bad when he wasn't crying. He handed him to me and said "please feed him before he cries again, I can't take it" :( So I nursed him, which he really didn't want much, but it calmed him down so I could put him in the car to go to the ER.
I got there and the ladies up front were all doting over him, none could believe when I gave his birthdate, they thought he was less than 2wks old? Then they asked how big he was at birth and they were even more shocked...I don't think he looks THAT tiny? But they got him back in triage right away.
In triage they took his temp which was normal. Then they tried to get a pulse ox on him and at first the machine kept alarming and it was in the 80s, she said it was because it didn't have a good connection point so she got it in a better position and it was mostly around 94, it hit 98 for one second so she said it was fine. Sure hope it is...94 seems low? When the machine kept alarming it was freaking me out since that was his main issue while in the NICU and we know his lungs aren't fully healed. But he hasn't been turning blue or anything like that, the only thing is he still breathes very fast a lot of the time. Then they did his weight which was 9lbs 4oz, fully clothed. I'm guessing that's probably most accurate out of the weights the past few days since their scale is inspected...mine isn't. They took him straight back to a room and the nurse came in there pretty quickly. She said that she isn't a dr but that she really thinks it's a very badly blocked tear duct. That her daughter had the same thing and after many rounds of antibiotics and it not clearing up it got very bad like his looked last night. They ended up having to take her to an ENT and they put tubes down in there to drain it and open it up...they stayed in about a year and she's been fine since then. The dr came in and he seemed concerned but not THAT concerned at first. He asked why he had been in the NICU and I briefly explained then handed him his discharge paperwork that has pretty much everything that went on in it. They told us to keep a copy in his diaper bag for things like this. After reading it and seeing Preston had sepsis...among all the other stuff...he seemed MUCH more concerned. Gave him antibiotics in his eye before we left, gave us those drops and a prescription for ointment. He said he HAS to see his pediatrician by Friday afternoon to have it checked on. He agrees we should ask for an ENT referral.
So he's ok for right now. The swelling is just his eye lid not his eye so it's ok. We have to do the drops/ointment 4x a day and then warm compresses, massaging and keeping it clean...the latter 3 we were already doing. Today he seems pretty miserable, he's being very good, extremely quiet but I think it's because he doesn't feel good. He isn't moving around much, he's just laying/sitting there :( My poor little man just can't get a break.
I posted pics on Facebook...I think most if not all of you have me on there IF you want to see them, they are pretty gross so I'm not going to put them on here where everyone that reads this has to see them.
Poor baby :(
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