Madeleine's Eye

Madeleine's had an infected tear duct since she was about two weeks old, and it just isn't getting any better. Her doctor has prescribed a couple of different antibiotic eye drops that haven't made a dent in the gunk. The only relief we found was the week she was on oral antibiotics for her ear infection, but as soon that ended, the goop returned. So the pediatrician decided it was time to see an ophthalmologist, and we had the appointment yesterday. After a super-long wait (thirty minutes to just get into a room, then another thirty minutes after putting the dilation drops in her eyes), we saw the doctor. He said that there's a membrane completely blocking her right eye's plumbing. Because the tears don't have anyplace to drain, they build up and become infected. The solution is "popping" the membrane, which we will hopefully be able to do at home. We have to push as hard as we can a few times a day on the side of her nose/corner of her eye. If we can't pop it, then he'll have to do a little surgery to open it up. We'll go back in a month, but he said he wouldn't do surgery until she was 6 months old. Let's hope we don't have to go down that road.