Google

Am I the only Mom that asks "dr google" before they ask a health care professional about their kids or even their own health symptoms?

Tonight as I was feeding Cooper I noticed the outside of his ear was really red. Dave and I were curious as to what it was. Dave suggested I call the nurse line offered by our insurance company. I was getting up to google it. Dave discouraged this as "dr google" sometimes leads me to assume the worst possible diagnosis from the symptoms I describe. But I did the sensible thing, I did both and here are the results:

Nurse line - contact his primary care physician within 8 hours and if I am not able to get a hold of Cooper's doctor then call them back for more direction. No hint of the possible diagnosis. Just call his doctor within 8 hours. I don't know if it would you, but that freaked me out.

Google - Swimmers ear. Which is not always caused by "swimming" and translates to more or less an ear infection.

Well I felt silly to call his doctor after hours for a red ear so I did the sensible thing and got him in the car made a bottle and headed to Urgent Care. Because if it is an ear infection as google said he needs antibiotics and who knows what the nurse line thought but "within 8 hours" justified urgent. I got to Urgent Care and realized I didn't have my wallet and Dave was at Walmart so he couldn't bring it to me. I sat in my car and decided to go in and have them pull my insurance information. I got out of the car and opened the back door to a snoring Cooper with a not as red as it was before ear. I poked and tugged at his ear and he didn't squirm.

I then got back in my car drove home and decided it was very possible he just laid on his ear the wrong way. I am taking my own advise of "take two of these (ok the two of these were for my own headache) and check his ear in the morning". I went with my gut feeling. I need to trust that more often. Let's just hope I don't blog about an ear infection tomorrow.