I want to review, at the top of this post, one of my earlier pieces of advice:
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DO NOT LOOK IT UP ON THE INTERNET!!!!!!
Truly everything I Googled from "my baby is drooling" to "green poop" was met by messages of unrelenting doom and assurances of impending NICU visits.
This from such heralded experts as hotmomz1767@senet.com and luvmyboys245@marqvile.gov.
Do not consult these freaks. Most of them are getting their medical know-how from the people who live in their teeth.
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I provided this highly sound theory just four weeks ago on this blog. And then, yesterday morning, I ignored it completely.
It all started when I went to collect the Snood from his crib and noticed what experts would call a "strange thing on his face." It was a good-sized red bump right next to his ear. Like a pimple.
My husband had already left for work and, left to my own devices, I panicked...and then I Googled.
Let's start with the positives:
I now have a go-to solution for those of you who have been complaining about getting far too much good, restful sleep. Why not try doing a Google image search for "mysterious skin lesions"? I can almost guarantee you'll never rest in a dreamless state again.
Moving onto the negatives:
I was immediately met with an abundance of theories about what might be wrong with the Snood:
MRSA! Abscesses! Flesh eating bacteria!
I left no potential horror unexamined as I clicked through page after page of dubious medical musings. About five minutes into some scholarly research at www.kcom.edu/ facultychamberlaine/skineye.htm, I had my final diagnosis!
The Snood was suffering from a rare Bolivian toad-borne virus.
Having never visited Bolivia, it remained something of a mystery how the Snood might have contracted said virus, but I wasn't about to let that little fact impinge on my Googlian logic!
No! I had arrived at my disturbing conclusion and was now off to the races. Before long I was mentally preparing for my inevitable appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, in order to promote my harrowing personal memoir, "It Began With a Mystery Bump: One Mother's Journey of Courage"!
I tearfully called my husband to tell him of our baby's condition. He listened patiently and then gently suggested that it might be time to close the computer and call the pediatrician's office.
Thankfully, Snood's pediatrician is a very lovely and understanding woman. We went to visit her late that afternoon and, as it happens, she was able to completely rule out Bolivian frog plague as the source of the problem almost immediately.
Instead, she diagnosed the Snood with...a pimple.
She advised me to hold off on the Oprah booking for the time being and then she gave me a tube of cream, which she instructed me to rub on the affected area three times a day. As she sent me on my way, she assured me that the now non-mystery bump would likely disappear by week's end...
...but not before she told me to stop Googling.
