Gross but true

This morning Rami was removing Sophia's earrings before her soccer game. He brought her upstairs to clean it out and whispered to me that it didn't look "pretty". Sophia has had her ears pierced for 2 years now but has always been sensitive about her ears and says they hurt a lot (even now 2 years later). We have noticed that we can never leave any earrings other than the piercing studs in for longer than 3-4 days. She had a new pair on that I just bought for the last 5 days now.

Well, I went to inspect the ear and I was shocked to see a hole, a gaping, oozing hole filled with pus and blood. The earring itself had fused onto her earlobe and created some sort of flesh eating monster. Ugh, we took the earrings out, cleaned the wound, applied Neosporin and then contemplated how serious this was on a Saturday.

Well, being a little afraid of flesh eating bacteria we decided to call the doctor, knowing that she does have office hours on Saturday's for urgent cases.

Yes, the doctor did want to see this and yes, Sophia would probably need antibiotics.

So, it turns out Sophia has a nickle allergy. The doctor said we're lucky that we caught it when we did because sometimes the earrings actually become embedded in the ear and they have to surgically remove portions of the earring from the child's ear. ICK!

So, Sophia is on Keflex and antibiotic ointment. We got the piercing studs back in tonight (which we're lucky because otherwise she would have to re-pierce one ear down the road). The good news is that when Sophia is married her husband will only be able to buy her the expensive earrings :-)

And, we thought that was the end of our drama for the day....