Tell Me It’s Just A Bad Case Of Lovin’ You.

Posted on May 28th, 2009 by Your Aunt Becky

54


Tuesday night found me gnashing my teeth, feeling overwhelmingly sorry for myself while sitting on the couch crying, “Oh noes!” Nothing was technically WRONG, but for some reason the first Early Intervention interview (for those who have been there: it’s the paperwork one) threw me through a loop.

That and the idiotic thing I did where I went back and gathered up all of the insurance/doctor notes/crap I’ve been sent since Amelia was born and threw it into a folder. Glancing down at it while I was doing it was as advisable as looking at an MRI of your child’s grey matter.

So there I was, prostrate with self-pity and overall stupidity, crying my ever-loving head off.

I went to bed a couple of hours later with my head pounding (I’ve been having a string of headaches. Which led, in part, to my Pity Party) only to be woken up at odd intervals by my son, who was flipping around in his crib in the next room.

I woke up The Daver to have him go in there and move Alex’s crib away from the wall and to check on the ickle dude. Why I sent Dave in there and not me, I don’t know.

He’d gotten a bug bite overnight on Sunday and woke up Monday with a small lump on his face. By Tuesday afternoon, it had begun to swell slightly. I’d pumped him full of Benedryl, Ibuprofen and Tylenol to pull down some of the swelling, and he’d gone into a deep sleep.

(aside: Thank you Benedryl for awesomely putting my kid to sleep)

We’re not alarmist sort of parents, we don’t take our kids to the ER for fevers of unknown origin unless they’re incredibly high (the fevers, not my kid. Because if my kid is high, he should be sharing), and I rarely call the doctor to schedule anything besides the well-child visits.

Dave shuffled in to Alex’s room where he found our son flopping about in his bed. After his record 3 hour nap that afternoon, it wasn’t terribly shocking that he was up at 1 AM. In a stroke of divine luck (not Divine Brown), Dave picked Alex up. The kid was burning up.

Well, fuck. The insect bite that we’d ignored was now making him sick as fcuk.

I heard Alex calling “Let’s go see Mommy. Let’s go see Mommy” so I knew he was up. As Dave changed his diaper, I went to give him a kiss. The sight before my eyes made me tear up with non-self-pitying tears. Alex now looked as though he’d been thoroughly beaten. His left eye was nearly swollen shut, bruised and pink and his cheek looked like he’d been smuggling marbles.

I sighed, went back upstairs to put pants on, wiping tears from my eyes (he looked THAT bad) and got dressed. Dave woke Amelia up. It was Hospital Time.

Choosing to go to the ER at the hospital that Mimi had her surgery because they boasted a pediatric ER, we headed off.

We got there, parked, and trundled in, looking as bedraggled as we’d ever been. We joked that they were going to call CPS on us after seeing Alex’s face. Alex was cheerful, though, more so than Dave or I, and Amelia just looked dazed. Pleased by my choice, we walked down a deserted hallway to get to the ER.

Score, I said to myself. It looks DEAD here. Perfect.

As we rounded the corner, we came to a line. Of people. Fuck. At the head of the line was a lumpy Jabba-The-Hut-I-Have-No-Angles type woman who was robotically taking names and entering them into a computer. Everywhere I looked, every chair, every available surface was covered by sick people.

We checked in eventually, where I confused the receptionist by asking if there was somewhere that I could sit that wasn’t full of contagious sick people. Alex had something, but it wasn’t spreading. She was unable to knock her remaining 2 synapses together and just stared vacantly at me.

Okay, then.

An hour went by, Amelia got reswaddled and fell back asleep while Alex continually grabbed my hand and yelled “let’s GO Mommy” every time we went back near the entrance. I tried to avoid touching any surfaces and breathing deeply. After that hour we still hadn’t been seen by triage, so I went back to the dazed receptionist to see what the wait was like.

When she said 3 hours, I nearly decked her. Information that might have been useful when I checked in.

At 2:30 in the morning, we were back on the road, headed to another hospital. The beauty of living where I do is that it’s not insanely populated. While there are people who assumably need ER’s, a wait like 3 hours is nearly unheard of.

We checked in to hospital #2 and were barely done putting the bracelet on Alex’s arm before we were whisked back to a room by a nurse. 10 minutes later, we saw the doctor. 5 minutes after that, we had a diagnosis and some antibiotics ordered from the pharmacy.

The longest part of the second hospital visit was waiting to make sure that Alex didn’t go into anaphylaxis from the antibiotic shot (he’s never been on antibiotics. Which, now that I think about it, explains the massive diarrhea today. Anyhow, moving on). For 20 minutes, we crawled the halls, looking into each room for Happy’s (the pain chart faces).

It was great until I realized how fucking heavy 30 pounds is and that one of the rooms we were peering into had a corpse in it. Then I felt kinda voyeuristic.

We left, sans anaphylaxis, with strict orders that should this not improve, Alex will be admitted for IV antibiotics. Which sounds like hell. Unless they sedate us both. Then I could totally get behind it.

He’s better today than yesterday. He’s a little less puffy and looks even more like he’s been in a wicked bar-fight (you should SEE the other guy! Yuk-yuk-yuk).

—————

How are YOU today? Any good hospital (boner) stories for Aunt Becky today?

  • Share/Bookmark