Drama... Blurgh

This has been such a long week! I feel like it's gone on for ages, but it's only Wednesday. (Right? It is Wednesday, isn't it? Well, it's after midnight, so I guess now it's actually Thursday...) Anyway, Ian was out of town from Thursday - Tuesday for his oral board exam. We don't have the results yet, but I'm PRAYING that he passed. I'm so eager to put these exams behind us! Passing is far from a sure thing, so I'm trying to be prepared for any outcome, but I am hoping!

On Monday morning, Izzie woke up and I changed her diaper as usual. Totally normal. About an hour and a half later, I changed her again and she'd developed a ton of redness in her diaper area, including a serious red spot with a blistery center. What the heck?! How can something like that happen so quickly? So, I made an appointment with the ped and actually got in to see the NP within the hour. Lucky me! I was told the baby girl probably had a staph infection. I took the topical antibiotic the NP gave us and happily went on our way. Ian, however, was very concerned when I called and told him about this. This is where everything went downhill. Poor Ian was under a lot of stress Monday as he prepared for his exam on Tuesday morning. All that studying tends to pull up more complicated - and potentially dangerous - scenarios. He's spent enough time in the burn unit to have experience dealing with some of those worst case scenarios. I got very nervous when he said that he was concerned. I usually get frustrated with Ian for not getting worked up enough. Anyway, Izzie was acutally looking better for most of the afternoon. Around 5:30, though, she had another diaper change and looked remarkably worse... like 4 times worse. There were new big red, blistery patches and other bumpy areas. Poor baby! Then I was worried how much worse she might get by the morning, if it could change so much in just about 4 hours. Plus, I wasn't sure a topical antibiotic would really work, since it was in her diaper area. I figured that the odds of her "washing" it off or me then wiping it off too soon were probably pretty good. After talking with Ian, my brother who is an ER nurse, a friend who is a pediatrician, and the on-call nurse for Izzie's pediatrician, we all decided it would be best for me to take Izzie to the ER so someone else could take a look at her that night. We were very "fortunate" (i.e. Ian made a call) and got in to see someone pretty quickly and found out that the baby girl was fine. She did have an infection, but it was progressing normally and this NP agreed that the topical antibiotic should do the trick. Two days later, she's looking WAY, WAY better.

After reflecting on our Sunday activities, I've decided to blame this whole fiasco on the changing table at Babies 'R Us. I have to confess that it never occurred to me that I should clean my hands before changing her diaper. It does make sense, though... especially for those tables that are in bathroom stalls. I'm sure there's lots of ickiness on the handles. I have learned that lesson and I will be much more careful about that now! So, it seems we've really had a lot of drama over nothing. It's funny to write this and see that it all truly has ended up not to be a very big deal, but it sure took an emotional toll on me! I'm pooped! I can't even tell you how happy & relieved I was when Ian finally got home last night. I am so glad my little stint of single-parenthood is over!!