Somehow Sophie went from runny nose and cough to runny nose, cough, high fever and (a lot of) yellow gunk coming out of her eye. (This in addition to other runny noses, fevers and maybe-pinkeyes in the house right now.) Cue the Saturday evening call to the doctor and antibiotics prescribed over the phone. We made the call close to her bedtime, so by the time the prescription was actually called in, filled and picked up, it was close to 10pm. Sophie was miserable at this point, not feeling well and exhausted.
I tore off the stapled instructions from the paper prescription bag.
And read this:
(Note, Sophie hates water in her eyes, hates it. I’m talking, screams-in-the-shower-won’t-dunk-her-head-in-a-pool-can’t-stand-to-be-splashed hates it.)
TO USE THIS MEDICINE, first wash your hands. Tilt your head back and, with your index finger, pull the lower eyelid away from the eye to form a pouch. Drop the prescribed number of drops of medicine into the pouch and gently close your eyes. Do not blink and keep your eyes closed for 1 or 2 minutes. Do not rub the eye. Place one finger at the corner of the eye near the nose and apply gently pressure … This will prevent the medicine around your eye from draining away from the eye. Remove excess medicine around your eye with a clean tissue, being careful not to touch your eye. Wash your hands to remove any medicine that may be on them.
Except that we weren’t doing this to ourselves. Rather we were doing this to our 4-year-old—our exhausted, sick 4-year-old who hates anything in or close to her eyes.
I looked in the prescription bag to see if there was another medicine that would knock Sophie unconscious just long enough for us to do this to her.
The bag was empty.
We decided to be straight up with her, tell her exactly what we were going to do, what was going to happen and ask her if she had any questions.
She looked at us like we were the worst parents on this planet and buried her head (and self, really) into my pillow.
We got the drops in. It involved (not necessarily in this order) explanation, pleading, bribing, begging, pinning down, pinning open, screaming, crying, gummy worm eating.
Oh, and we get to do this three times a day.
For seven days.
“A Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go down-wown
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way.” —Mary Poppins
