Sunday, August 10, 2008

It's Exhausting When They're Sick...



So he pretty much kept the fever going all day on Saturday.  Then this morning when he woke up he felt pretty cool.  I took his temp and it was about 99 or so, so not too bad considering.  We had a nice mellow morning, and he went down for his morning nap right on time around 9:30am.  I did my thing and ended up in the shower.  When I got out of the shower at around 10:30 I heard screaming.  Now my child does NOT scream.  He may be a bit mellow dramatic, but he is not a screamer.  I went rushing in there...(take a moment to picture)...I was whitening my teeth, so I had my trays in with the whitening gel, I had my hair up in a towel and I was buck naked at this point.  Literally just stepping out of the shower to pick up the monitor and realize this was a bit more serious than normal...

I ran into his room and he was literally doubled over in pain.  "Tummy hurts!  Tummy hurts!" he was screaming while sort of panting.  It was clear that he was having some sort of cramp or something because he was trying to breath in between the pain and then yell to me to fix it.  He even said, "Help Mommy, tummy hurt!"  Right at this time, The Ex called.  I told her to get her ass over here because I thought we might be on our way to the emergency room...

Let me explain my thinking.  I have a kid who randomly developed a fever on Friday evening after literally NO symptoms whatsoever prior to that.  He kept the fever all day on Saturday.  He had complained of his tummy hurting several times over the previous day but when pressed it always seemed to be a poop issue.  So random fever and all of a sudden out of control abdominal pain.  I was thinking appendix or something bursting.  Meanwhile I call my mom and tell her to be on alert and then (thankfully) I had the insight to call the pediatrician on call.  Now I am not a paranoid mother and I have never called a doctor in off-hours in my entire life, but I felt like I should go there rather than sit at the hospital without merit.  

But prior to that, The Boy is asking for medicine (smart kid...where the hell was his mother to think of that?).  So I gave him 2 teaspoons of gripe water, which he sucked down.  He was crying in the background "Tummy hurt!!"  Then I turned on the TV for him and went out of the room to call the pediatrician.  I talked to the operator who wanted to know exactly what had happened, what his temperature was right then, and why I was calling.  Keep in mind that I still had the teeth whitening trays in so I sounded like a pre-pubescent teenager with a lisp.  It was really quite embarrassing.  But I got it all out and the operator told me a doctor would call me back within 15 minutes.  I said okay and hung up.  I pulled the damn trays out of my mouth and desperately brushed my teeth to get the flavor off.  I ran into my room to check on the boy, who was quiet but still rolling around in pain and tried to throw on some clothes.  It was an interesting concoction that ended up on my body in terms of clothes.  I took my hair out of the towel and tried to run a pick through it, the entire time hearing The Boy yelling "Tummy hurt Mommy!!" and trying to tell him that I called the doctor and that I was waiting to hear back.  Amazingly, he seemed to understand that.  So I tried to get my hair combed and in a pony tail holder and put on my fancy outfit and all of a sudden I realized that it was quiet.  And then I heard...well it sounded a little bit like laughter.  

I went over and he was laughing at the TV show.  I asked him if he was feeling better and he said, "Tummy hurt.  Have poop!"  I said, "You need to make a poop honey?"  "Uh huh."  Oh, well I guess that could be it too...as I am realizing that he always gets his Mira.lax in his Pedia.sure and since he hasn't been drinking his Pedia.sure since he got his fever, he hasn't had any Mira.lax either...and I don't think I have seen a poop in a couple of days.  Okay, perhaps his appendix isn't bursting.  Perhaps he just really needs to poop.  And by this time he is resting somewhat comfortably.  We are talking about pooping and pushing it out (TMI--sorry) and I am realizing that if Gripe Water helps him then he isn 't dying.  So I chill out and wait for the doctor to call back and rub his back to make him feel better.

By the time The Ex arrives he is pretty good and it is pretty apparent that we aren't on our way to the ER.  Oh, and it took the doctor over an hour to call back.  And when she finally did, she said I made the right call.  She said there is a summer virus going around that is basically a fever and a tummy ache.  So even if he does poop he still may complain about his tummy hurting because that is part of the virus.  I did the right thing by giving him a glass of apple sauce (spiked with Mira.lax) and had him drink it.  He had a huge poop about an hour later.  He has still sort of complained about his tummy throughout the night, but I imagine that is the virus talking.  He still has a low grade fever, but otherwise is doing okay.  Oh, and of course he has no appetite.  Of course he doesn't.  We have a weigh-in on Tuesday.  So this pretty much insures that he won't have gained any weight.  Fuck.  That's pretty much all there is to say.  Fuck.  But at least we didn't spend the day in the ER.  That's something.

Pictured above, posing with the flowers that he picked for me on his walk with his great grandmother this afternoon.  And underneath that, sitting in his tent, watching Cars on his TV in his playroom at the end of the day.

1 comment:

Catbert said...

He is so smart that one! Hopefully everything came out alright...LOL!