One day, the nanny told her how “Baylor squirted himself in the eye with a tub toy,” but Strong didn’t think it was a big deal until she noticed her son’s eye got red some time later.
As the redness spread, she and her husband rushed Baylor to the ER where he was given eye drops and instructed to go home.
That night, Strong decided to check on Baylor and give him a booster dose just to make sure the redness doesn’t progress. Sadly, when she entered his room, she spotted that his eye swelled even more and even his cheek turned pale red.
She took Baylor to the doctor’s once again and after running some tests, they determined the boy had contracted cellulitis, a common but potentially serious bacterial skin infection that causes swollen, red, and painful skin that may even feel warm to the touch, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Baylor was prescribed antibiotics and was sent home. He was then put to bed and when Strong went to check on him, she experienced yet another shocking surprise. “His iris was obscured by his bigger eye, and the white portion of it protruded from between his eyelids. He felt warm to the touch, and a fast temperature check confirmed a high fever,” she shared with CafeMom.
“I cried the entire way to a bigger hospital, praying that he wouldn’t lose his sight,” she explained in her post.
Having two older children who both have experienced health issues, her older son having epilepsy and her daughter being diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes connective tissue damage in the body, Strong knew how to ‘fight’ for a better treatment.
Writing to CafeMom, she explained that she is “sadly used to dealing with medical concerns on a regular basis, and I believe it empowered me to fight for my child. It’s terrifying to think of what may have happened to Baylor if I had given up on lobbying for treatment and chosen to give the eyedrops a few days to work.”
Baylor was prescribed more antibiotics, and the weeks that followed were a real struggle as doctors believed the boy would lose the sight on the affected eye. “It was like his entire future flashed before me, and everything looked different from what I had envisioned,” Strong said.
Luckily, as the swelling and the redness started fading away, it was determined that Baylor’s vision was unaffected.
Now, Strong is making sure other parents learn of the dangers of bath toys, such as rubber ducks.
“‘How about tub toys?’ THROW THEM AWAY,” she said in her Facebook post. “To put it simply, you cannot clean them. I don’t have any photos of moldy tub toys to show you because there was never any visible mold to photograph. Even though I’d known since sixth grade science class that bacteria can’t be seen, I still thought I was better than dirty tub toys. I made a mistake.”
The post has been shared thousands of times and Strong says that most of the comments are positive and support her opinion about bath toys.
“OMG,” one person wrote, “I had no idea.”
“I am happy that he is doing well; his eyes are so beautiful,” another added.
A third one commented, “How terrifying. I was aware that they had accumulated black mold because I had seen it on my own children’s toys, but I was ignorant that bleach would not address the problem. My kids squirted the item at themselves and each other, so I’m not sure how they avoided the same fate.”
Some even suggested buying those types of toys but glue the opening through which water gets inside before giving them to their children.
Strong is glad she wasn’t dubbed an alarmist for speaking of the dangers and suggesting getting rid of bath toys that fill in with water.
“I was scared that people would reject me as an alarmist, but after reading thousands of comments from parents whose children experienced something similar, I am now delighted to be the one sounding the alarm,” she says.
Further, Strong updated her friends on Baylor’s health condition and said that he recovered.
“He did spend quite a deal of time smiling his way through everything, even though I chose some of the more distressing photographs of him for my post,” she continued.
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