the weekend update

oh, golly gee, what a week. i had to get three beers in me before i could even get up the motivashuns to start this post.

tuesday morning aislinn had a tiny cough when she woke up. i'd been sick the week before so i just thought, "oh, she's coming down with what i had." then tuesday evening she came home from daycare with a stiff neck. she still didn't have a fever and was acting chipper so i thought i'd just keep an eye on it, even when she was fussy at bedtime which is uncharacteristic of her.

then she woke up around 9:30 p.m. running a fever. crap! stiff neck+fever+cough=meningitis scare in my book. i'm probably uber jumpy because i was in college at the time that there were meningitis outbreaks nationwide in college dorms so it's kind of on my radar, and also because she's my BAY-BEE and i've got a Ph.D. in self-schooled pediatrics courtesy of WebMD and babycenter.com and Dr. Sears.

so i called our pediatrician's after hours line to talk to a nurse. the answering service says that our ped is still taking after-hours calls and she will page him. okay, that's fine, whatev.

now my ped has kind of been on my shit list for a while for a couple of different reasons that i've mentioned on here previously. long story short he's a little too young and a little too cocky and takes me a little not seriously enough and always acts like i'm overreacting even though aislinn only sees him MAYBE twice a year for actual sickness. i'm no dumb young thing, right, so don't treat me that way, it won't fly.

anyways the pediatrician called me back and was acting all annoyed at my call, like i scoured the internet to find his home number or something. then he told me that he "doesn't know how [I could] really tell that a child that young has a stiff neck anyway, soooo..." okay, thanks for more or less just calling me an idiot. goodbye. in fact, goodbye forevah.

so i wait until the morning and i text my pediatrician/stepsister and ask her whether i should make an appointment with the doctor or take her to the emergency room. she tells me to go ahead and bring her to the ER (where she's a resident) because with the stiff neck that's probably where the ped will send her anyway to have blood tests done.

SO i take her to the ER and they give her an IV to take blood and give her a strep test and have to give her a catheter to get a urine sample since she isn't potty trained and it's an all-around six-hour nightmare, despite the doctors and nurses on staff at the St. Francis Pediatric ER who were very kind and gentle and accommodating and all-around great. ultimately she's discharged with a diagnosis of an general infection (probably whatever i had) that's caused her lymph nodes to swell which is causing the stiff neck. follow up with general practitioner in 1-2 days.

so we took her home and i inhaled some pei-wei and by this time she and i were just flat-out exhausted so we slept.

cut to friday. she was still running a fever, so i took her to a new pediatrician for her follow-up on the recommendation of a friend. my initial impression is that this guy and i will jive a whole lot better, so i'm hopeful.

today aislinn has continued to run a fever (the 5th day), but today her fever was a lot lower and i had to give her very little medicine. i don't ALWAYS medicate a fever, but i do medicate symptoms when she's appearing very uncomfortable. we were even able to venture OUT OF THE HOUSE with daddy to go to whole foods for lunch and to a used bookstore.

being out of the office unexpectedly for three days in a row has been nothing short of a logistical NIGHTMARE in terms of client appointments and things i need to get done, so i am very ready to be back at work tomorrow, even though i'm only working a half-day so i can pick her up early. but at least i didn't have to take a bunch of attitude from a superior about it. it's my practice and i can stay-home-with-my-sick-kid if i want to. that was the whole point, right?

having a sick child is so exhausting, more emotionally than physically because you'd give anything to make them better. the whole thing was underscored for me by the death of an eighteen year old boy from my hometown on friday. steven wilson had engaged in a courageous battle with cancer for the last year, and thousands of strangers and friends followed his every setback and improvement on his facebook page and the blog written by his mother. so i hold my beer up high this evening to parents everywhere who have children who are gravely ill. a twelve-hour scare nearly brought me to my knees, and i can't imagine what horrors they must go through every day as they watch your children suffer. bless you.

anyway. now i'm going to go sleep for a dozen hours.