Perchance Her Next Word Will Be Yo-Ho

My readers may remember my husband started a new job about two months ago, which rendered us insurance-less for a short period of time. He is a month out from the end of his probationary period, so we are still in that “short period of time” time. I knew that it would be practically useless to hope that we could make it through without a visit or two to the doctor. I’m quite sure that there is a terrible sort of chuckle coming from the final resting place of Mr. Murphy at the prospect of so much fun to be had at my expense.

A few weeks ago, my daughter awoke with a suspicious looking bump on each of her eyelids. I have been keeping one of my eyes on them, and while they haven’t gotten any larger they haven’t disappeared either. Being overcome with tiredness yesterday afternoon, the little munchkin stretched out upon a pillow and succumbed to what is known in mommydom as the wonderful “nap.” With smiling eyes I gazed down upon my lovely little bug.

It startled me to notice that her right eyelid was swollen and covered in a purplish-bruisy sort of color. Not being a panicky sort of mommy, but a cautious one nonetheless when it comes to eyes and things of that nature, I called up the pediatrician’s office to see what could be done. Of course, with it being an eye and all, they wanted to see her.

I wasn’t ready to have my pocketbook plundered over what was likely an allergy related problem, and I thought it would be nice to be able to purchase some other necessities, like food, this week, so I purposed to put off the visit for a day and see how things were looking in the morning.

It was a nice sort of morning. The kids slept until the unheard of hour of 8:30am and I was feeling pretty cozy in my pajamas. I plucked the baby from the bed and was about to plant a smooch on her cheek when I noticed that she was looking out of her right eye through a slit. I considered the fact that she could be practicing her pirate impression, but given the redness and the swelling I thought this was unlikely.

At this point there was a smidgen of alarm present in my visage. That’s it! I’ve blinded my poor baby for life because I didn’t call for an ambulance to rush her and her puffy eyelid to the doctor yesterday! She’ll grow up only being able to enjoy the turning of the leaves with one eye and we’ll have to buy her an eye patch and a parrot for Christmas!

The swelling quickly abated to a more manageable degree of inflammation, but I feared that putting off a visit to the doctor for one more day might prove to be imprudent. It just wouldn’t do for a teeny little girl to have an eyelid as big as her whole face, so I called up the office and flew into warp speed to get everybody ready and out of the house in time to make the appointment.

A very wise woman once told me that sometimes peace of mind is worth paying for. Actually, she tells me that a lot. She’s my mom. And not being able to see the afflicted eyelid herself, she settled for giving me that nugget of wisdom again. She’s right. Even though it can be expensive at times, peace of mind is really priceless.

The doctor couldn’t say for sure why the eyelid is swollen, but it’s not infected and it doesn’t look to be causing any harm or discomfort. Now that a professional has examined it, I am positive the eyelid will be back to its normal size by morning. If I’m wrong and the baby wakes up with a monstrosity of a lid tomorrow then at least I know it’s nothing to worry about and I can get to work on that eye patch with a clear conscious.