Where Did You Get Your Medical Degree?

I got mine on WebMd of course, like a bunch of other mothers have.

What? It's not a real degree? Whatever. It still doesn't stop me.

But I should know better because I know I'll only freak myself out more. Repeat - nothing good can come from Googling symptoms or checking them out on WebMd.

Yesterday Nacho noticed the baby had a bruise on his outer ear. I thought he said behind his ear and I'll be honest, I didn't think too much of it because I knew he had fallen and bumped his head on a toy earlier in the day. So imagine my shock when we took Lexi to ballet today and I noticed the whole top of his ear was bruised & swollen.

Yes, it took me that long to notice it. Don't judge me - it was a long morning! Well not long exactly - as we woke up 45 minutes late because the baby turned the volume off on the alarm clock when he was playing with it last night. Only I thought he was playing with my book, so I didn't even bother to check the alarm clock. Oh, I was talking about something else.

That's right, my beautiful baby and his poor ear. I was actually ok with it all until another mother mentions the possibility of a cauliflower ear. I had heard of that, but didn't really know what it was, so when we got home off to good ole WebMd I went. Take my advice - don't look it up. It's not that horrible, but the thought of my precious, perfect baby having that forever was a bit much to me. Especially because it took so long for me to even notice the bruise.

Thank God for our doctor. Seriously! They have an "email your doctor" feature where you can email the symptoms and he'll email you back with whether they think it warrants an appointment. Recently, they even added the ability to email pictures. So I spent the next 20 minutes chasing the baby trying to get one decent picture of his ear to send. I got one. I won't call it decent. While I was making lunch, the doctor emailed me back and said the baby will be just fine and he WON'T have a cauliflower ear. He even said my picture was okay.

While I'd love to believe my days of WebMd diagnosing are over, we all know they aren't. But it should be shortened a lot by actually talking to our doctor. The real one. Not the WebMd one.