Cyst on eye

Actually, it turned out not be a cyst, but I like to have a dramatic title.

Logie woke with a red eye on Sunday. But there was no gunk (we live in fear of another bout of conjunctivitis, as nursery have a militant banning policy) so I brazenly and firmly deposited him in the infant room on Monday morning. With some eye infection drops that I’d bought the day before JUST IN CASE, you understand.

I have learnt my lesson with nursery and illness. I once rang them first thing to ask their advice about bringing him in, as he had a slight temp, but seemed fine in himself. I was barely halfway through the first sentence when they said uh-uh, no way, any hint of a temp is an automatic ban. Similar to doing more than 30mph over the speed limit, I imagine.

But since then I’ve felt little frissons of annoyance every time I sign the medicine book for teething, and see previous entries for other children where their parents have requested calpol for ‘temperature of 37.5’. I can only deduce that they just turned up and presented the situation as a fait accompli. So that is my new MO.

When I collected him that afternoon, the eye was even redder, and there was an alarming white spot in the corner. Now, growths are not good, in my book. Unless you’re George Osborne.

So we gave swimming a miss on Tuesday, and toddled off to the doc instead. Logie literally toddled – he has a new ladybird backpack with a sort of dog lead on it. I know some people are very anti reins. I used to be dubious. But dear God it is a genius invention. I can stop him running into the road and prevent his certain death! I can stop him picking up fag butts on the street with a single jerk! I can even help him up if he falls over by employing the crane technique! And he really likes it.

Anyway, it was unusually calm at the surgery. When we checked in on the touchscreen, it said we were seeing ‘Dr Urgent’. Which sounded like a good superhero name. Logie played fairly nicely with a little girl with a ponytail called Josie (who later turned out to be a boy called Joseph) – it’s pretty impressive how much entertainment there is to be had from going in and out of a knackered plastic playhouse, sticking your head out the window and saying ‘Ha!’.

The GP said it wasn’t infected (no gunk, you see, I was spot on) and merely inflamed. Impossible to say why. And that it wasn’t a new spot – there are all sorts of bumps on our eyes that you don’t normally notice til they get inflamed and thrown into contrast by a red bit. So he said he’d prescribe some anti-inflammatory drops.

Then he got his book out, and started looking them up. I know it’s mean, because they can’t be expected to memorise the details of thousands of medications, but I feel slightly uneasy when the bible comes out. Unfairly, I want them to prescribe things they know inside out – and possibly even invented.

Eventually, he looked up and said “So the drops I was going to prescribe aren’t licensed for children...” and did a significant pause. Well, I felt it was significant. I am sensitive to pauses. I wasn’t sure if this was my cue to say “Never mind, we’ll have them anyway,” or “Oh that silly old licensing authority – don’t you just hate them?”. Or perhaps “Don’t worry, I won’t mention your ill-conceived plan to anyone, for example on a blog.”

Perhaps if he’d been a convincing regular doctor, who said he’d done this a thousand times before, I’d have been happy with the adult ones. After all, I know someone who has shared eye drops with their dog (much cheaper).

But instead we settled on an oral anti-inflammatory solution. And when I volunteered that we had infant neurofen at home already, we abandoned the whole prescribing thing. So just another of those instances where you don’t know what caused it, they can’t give you anything special for it, and you’re told to hope it goes away on its own. If not, come back in a week. It’s not the doctors’ fault – it’s just the nature of childhood illnesses. But it’s unsatisfactory, and makes for a very mediocre blog.

On a separate note, it’s important for me to put in writing that our gas bill has gone up by £41 a month. That seems like quite a lot, doesn’t it? Golly, I don’t know...energy prices. Lots to say about them, isn’t there?

The reason I mention it is because Jon revealed last night that he has two more work jollies (sorry, important events) coming up – taking journalists to see England v New Zealand at Twickenham, and then some ATP Masters tennis at the O2. And other halves are not invited. Why not?

“You’d have to be a journalist...” he explained, then hastily added as my indignant mouth opened “...who writes about energy”. Perhaps he could see my cogs grinding, as he finally concluded “You’d have to have written something about oil or gas, and had it published”. So excuse me while I press my Publish button.