Brief recap of yesterday

Peyton has been sick with a cold the past few days. Wednesday morning, she woke up happy and content. I attempted to feed her baby food and she refused to eat. I wasn't overly concerned with this since she hasn't been eating well with her cold, who does? I gave her a bottle and then off to the gym we went. I dropped her off at the child care and told them to come get me if she was fussy. Worked out for an hour and half and went to go get Peyton. Two of the staff members were huddled around Peyton and they told me that she really wasn't feeling well. I thanked them and put Peyton in her pumpkin seat so we could head home and I could evaluate her and try to make her feel better. While putting her in the car, I got a close up of Peyton's face and she had massive amounts of drainage coming from her eyes and her eyes were a little bit swollen. Again, wasn't overly concerned about this; thought maybe it could be from allergies and I would clean her eyes with a warm wash cloth when got home. We got home and it was VERY obvious Peyton did not feel well. Peyton is incredibly active and cannot sit still more than 30 seconds, even in her sleep. When we got home, she laid down on my chest for FOUR hours barely moving. She has never been a cuddler (which drives me nuts, I want her to cuddle with her moma!), but yesterday she laid down and just wouldn't let go and did not want to move. She occasionally cried out with this weak, absolutely pathetic cry; it broke my heart. Around noon, I asked Brad to call the pediatrician to get an appointment for Peyton. She got an appointment at 4:15. My mom met us at the pediatrician and took one look at Peyton and broke down. Peyton, who is ALWAYS happy and cheery, was very lethargic, had copious amount of drainage, and her eyes were now almost swollen shut. We went back to the room and the pediatrician took one look at her and said 'wow'. After she evaluated Peyton, she concluded that Peyton had a sinus infection, a cold, and a slight chest cold and prescribed her with oral and eye antibiotics. I was satisfied and stopped by the pharmacy on the way home to pick up her meds.

We got home around 5:30, right when Brad did. The poor man nearly broke down in tears as soon as he saw Peyton; she just looked miserable. We spent the night taking care of her and tried to make her as comfortable as possible. The swelling was getting worse and so was the drainage. Around 8:30 last night, I tried to put in her eye drops. When I attempted to open her now swollen shut eyes, bloody drainage came out. Instantly Brad and I were scared. I called the pediatrician on-call and she said go straight to the ER. At this point, I got nervous. So we packed her things up, made a few bottles, and headed to The Children's Hospital ER. Of course because of the swine flu scare, the ER was overflowing with kids. We took the last two seats in the waiting room and this is a very large waiting room. I was sure we would be there for at least 4 hours before being seen by the doctors. Surprisingly, about 10 minutes of turning in her paperwork, we were called back. That's right folks, we were in the children's ER waiting room for 25 minutes. Holy Cow. We definitely got some mean looks from other parents while walking back. Well when they took one look at Peyton, they immediately said sorry and felt bad for my sweet baby Peyton.

We saw several doctors who were all very impressed with Peyton's swelling and said it was the worst they had ever seen. When they were able to pry her eyes open, I was able to get a look. Her eyes are completely bloody - the white part of the eyes were red and the inside of her lids were bloody and draining blood. Poor Peyton! So Peyton got a shot of antibiotics, a dose of Benadryl (which I did not know babies could receive at 8 months), and new oral antibiotics. While we were there, the attending (top medical doctor) called over to the Eye Foundation, at MIDNIGHT I might add, to talk to an eye specialist about Peyton's symptoms. We ended up getting an appointment at the eye foundation Thursday morning (today). After that, they discharged us with instructions and after four hours of seeing doctors and running tests, we were on our way home at 2 am.
Peyton had an appointment with a Dr. Hein, who I found out to be our eye specialist in the NICU who comes to check out all of our premature babies for ROP (retinopathy of prematurity). He examined Peyton, did some tests, checked with his partners, and decided that Peyton has both a viral and bacterial infection of her eyes and sinuses. The virus happens to be hemorrhagic which is why Peyton's eyes are bleeding (think of Dustin Hoffman's moving "Outbreak" depicting the Ebola virus outbreak in the U.S.).
So, today Peyton's eyes are looking better. She can actually open them which is good, but it is kind of scary to look at since they are bloody. But she is definitely feeling better. She is playing with her toys and ate some food today. So now, we finish all of her medicines, take her back to the eye specialist Tuesday, and pray that she feels better soon! But I will admit, I was incredibly impressed and so proud of how strong and good Peyton was throughout this whole ordeal. Way to go sweetie!

What a day!