I'm SOO heated!

I love my daycare, but they frustrate the living lights out of me sometimes! We have 3 kids, the twins and a baby. Today is the THIRD time in 2 weeks we've been called becuase of 'suspected' pink-eye. Well by the time we get there to pick them up, the kids are fine. By definition from Web-MD (and clarification from their Pedi) they have NOT had pink-eye. I love my kids and spending time with them, but we can not keep taking time off of work becuase the daycare 'thinks' they have pink-eye.

Everyone at the daycare 'thinks' that when you pull your eyelid down, the area inside your lower lid is what indicates pink-eye, and if it's red, then you must have pink eye. Okay, well that part of the lid is ALWAYS some shade of dark pink/red! Even in healthy eyes. Just becuase a child's eyes have goobies in them does not in and of itself indicate pink-eye. All of my kids have had colds for the past few weeks, and they've all gone to their eyes at some point or other.... As the pedi says, it's just the mucous finding another way to get out of their body, besides their nose/mouth....

It just frustrates me that they make me take them out of daycare, take them to urgent care (like a 3-4 hour wait) just to get a note to go back to school the next day. Oh and then depending who they see, they end up walking out with like 4 other medications (seriously, last time the girls both walked out with C-phen for the mucous, amoxicillin for a *mild* ear infection and then they gave them the erthomycin for their eyes just in case, even though they said it wasn't pinkeye)

I understand they need to look out for all the children in the center, but can they at least have a CORRECT definition of what the heck it is they're even looking for??? They don't have any book to look at, they have minimally trained staff (by minimally I mean they are not fully qualified nurses/Dr's/NP's) so exactly how is it that THEY can determine who stays in school and who has to go home??


Grrr...... thanks for letting me vent

 

That would drive me CRAZY!! I would tell them to google pink eye before they call you next time.

 

That sucks that you get called in for so many false alarms. We are in the same boat to some extent. One of my kiddos has a plugged tear duct (his eye doesn't drain - since birth). So if he cries and then goes to sleep when he wakes up he has gunk in his eye. As long as it gets cleaned out, no big deal. If it sits it can turn into an eye infection. So for the first couple weeks we were there they called me after just about every nap to tell me they thought he had an eye infection to which I would come in, look at it, and tell them, no, it was fine. I finally brought them in some pictures of what it would look like if it were infected and assured them that I checked his eye at least twice a day (morning and night when I was cleaning it) and would never bring him in if it was even suspect without mentioning it. But, to please check it out and call me if it looked like any of these pictures. It finally did the trick. And one day when his eye actually did get infected since I had to take his brother in anyways, I stopped by the office and our classroom and showed everyone what an actual infection would look like. That was 3-4 months ago and since then not one single false alarm though I have to admit they were the first to catch an actual case of pinkeye - one which looked fine when I dropped him off, but was most definately a case of pinkeye by the time I picked him up.

 

QUOTE(blueclouds @ Mar 10 2009, 12:42 PM) [snapback]1221800[/snapback]
All of my kids have had colds for the past few weeks, and they've all gone to their eyes at some point or other.... As the pedi says, it's just the mucous finding another way to get out of their body, besides their nose/mouth....

This is just what happens to me when I get colds.

I'm so sorry they keep calling you for it. :hug: Is there a way you can get a note from your doctor to say "Please call the parents if you see this _____". Can he let them know that it's just their way of having a cold?

 

QUOTE(MichelleL @ Mar 10 2009, 07:39 PM) [snapback]1222618[/snapback]
I'm so sorry they keep calling you for it. :hug: Is there a way you can get a note from your doctor to say "Please call the parents if you see this _____". Can he let them know that it's just their way of having a cold?


Michelle, that's what I was thinking too. Next time you're at the pedi, they almost certainly have some literature that you can snag (or they can direct you to "official" looking printouts - hopefully with pictures of actual pinkeye!) and you can bring it in to the daycare and sweetly say, "my pediatrician thought you might be interested in some informational/educational literature"

OP, that would drive me batty!

 

Michelle, great solution! A note from the doctor would be very helpful in this situation I think.

I am so sorry you are dealing with this. :hug: Definitely not pink eye IMO, I have seen it, and that's not it. BTW, are they pulling down your children's lids all the time? Without gloves? I would be checking on that. :hug: