My House, the Pharmacy

On Friday morning, when I went to pick up Caitlin's prescription eye drops for her pink-eye, the pharmacy staff at Safeway didn't know me. On Saturday, when I went to get Brandon's prescription eye drops for his hurt eye, the pharmacist thought I looked familiar. Today, when I went to get Caitlin's new prescription for her raging ear infection, I thought we might be on a first-name basis!

Caitlin's preschool called me this morning to tell me that Caitlin was crying and complaining her ear hurt. Caitlin has complained about her ears in the past, amidst much crying, and has had very little to show for it. For a girl who is rough and tumble outside, and has an assortment of band aids on her knees and elbows at any given time, she has a surprisingly low tolerance for certain other types of pain. We decided to wait it out, and the preschool called me again half an hour later saying she was hysterical. So I went to the school, gave her some tylenol, and took her to the car. She was fine. She was happy. She had not complained about her ear hurting at all prior to her hysterical outburst at school. I called the doctor anyway, and made an appointment for 1:15 (because I was not setting foot in the stupid Urgent Care center again!). She stopped crying and said she was hungry, so we went to lunch. Again, she was fine. She ate her lunch. She ate some of mine. Since she's not contagious, we headed back to to her school to pick up her friend that we carpool with. The staff at her preschool wondered if she was the same kid. No hysterical sobbing. No red puffy face. No complaining.

When I took her to her appointment, her pediatrician said the pressure on her ear was intense. She has a raging infection. She put Caitlin on a strong anti-biotic in hopes to get it all under control quickly so her eardrum doesn't perforate. Ugh!! That can be painful. I know. But hey, at least I don't have to do the eye-drops anymore! In a way I feel vindicated this time, after all our appointments and one trip to the Urgent Care because Caitlin cried that her ears hurt, only to find nothing is wrong. At least something was wrong this time. There was a reason for all the pain and crying.

I did feel a twinge of embarrassment when I went to the pharmacy yet again. My third time in 5 days. As if 5 hours in Urgent Care and 2 prescriptions over the weekend was not enough. But we managed to get it all done and under control before our 3:30 parent-teacher conference for Brandon. Three's a charm right? No more? Can I be done for a while? I'm tired.