I am now happy to report the following:
1- A wonderful neighbor came right to our door in 10 minutes and stayed with the three kids (and the nurse) while I took off for the urgent appointment to see our local pediatrician. Our new neighbor friend is a Catholic, homeschooling mom of nine who has visited and prayed for Ellie many times since we've moved here. The kids absolutely loved her. They sang, danced, played Clue and threw paper airplanes. They weren't even that excited to see me come in with Chick-Fil-A. The nurse and I then treated Ellie's eye (Ellie not a big fan of the process).
2- Even though Ellie does have "pink eye" which three of the "others" had in the house it seems to be her only symptom as of now (with the addition of a bit of irritability).
3 - The surgeon was consulted and he said for now he's ok with her still having the open heart surgery in the very near future with this current eye infection. We are still waiting day by day to monitor her health before we're absolutely sure of a date. But for the moment, this will not set us back 4-6 weeks like we were afraid of.
This is a fuzzy picture but it's mainly her left eye that is goopey and swollen.
On that note, it appears unfortunately that the damage done here today was an internal job. How you have five sick people in a house and the sixth one not catch something seems to be almost impossible.
Case in point: this is little Julia after I got her eyes open this morning with a warm rag and applied some of Jeff's old eye drops. Using those drops would not cut it for Ellie, the surgeon wanted an official report from an MD and I'm grateful they take it so seriously and I'm also grateful for how accomodating the doctor's office was today.
Julia wants her and Ellie's eyes to stop hurting.
