I wait until it’s too late to take my kids to the doctor. I have an 11 year old with asthma because I listened to the doctor who said he had a cold and didn’t start ignoring the doctor until the pneumonia had almost fixed itself and his lungs had almost said, “Fine, do it yourself.”
We did it ourselves for a week in Children’s Hospital to get his pulse-ox above 80. We’ll be doing it ourselves for the rest of his life, with the assistance of steroidal inhalants.
I under-react or I over-react, medically. Usually, one directly follows the other. Like the time I, oh yes I did, apologized to the mother of the girl who’s feet hit my 2 year old’s face at full-speed on a gymnastics center swing and threw her 20 feet across the gym floor. I actually checked on that girl to make sure she was okay before I realized, “Hey, my child is no longer conscious.” Then I lost my fucking mind and cried sososo hard that we waited for exactly 3.2 seconds in a Canadian emergency room to be seen. They sent two doctors…one for her, one for me.
I wish I was kidding.
However, when it comes to blood and bones and oxygen, I don’t fuck around. You bleed? You visit the ER. You wheeze? We go to the ER. You break? I take a quick pregnancy test because you and me are about to spend some time under an x-ray machine. Even if it’s your eye socket and even I know there isn’t a cast in the world for a broken eye socket.
So my daughter has been sick since Christmas Eve. My mother in law has been, too. They’ve been boogie-nosed, fever burning, cold-sweating, sleeping all day, up all night petri-dishes. My mother in law said her lungs felt like dried up coal. My daughter said her ears were screaming at her. But they did it together, at the same time, and that screams of virus. I don’t go to the doctor for viruses. I also don’t pay people to tell me I have blue eyes or blond hair. I can see that for myself, thanks, and I have plenty of other things I’d like to waste $20 on.
Fevers don’t scare me, either. Once you have a kid who bottoms out a thermometer so many times his doctor tells you to stop bringing him in every time he does it, you giggle off 103. Because you know how to treat it. I KNOW how to treat a fever. It’s my superpower; that and stain removal.
But after a good week, week and a half, of fevers and no sleep and sneezing and coughing that just kept getting worse, I started to worry. One girl is 4, one is 68, and neither are strong enough to endure something like, oh, say, the swine flu.
And that’s when I realized that I’d been ignoring the swine flu in a child and an elderly woman with asthma. All of the symptoms were right there in front of me…fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. We won’t discuss the diarrhea.
My daughter started waking up in the middle of the night on fucking FIRE and twitching in my arms. Twitching, people. My mother in law started sleeping so late into the day, I started sending her son to poke her and make sure she was still alive. When death became a symptom we were actively checking for, I made them go to the doctor.
I walked into the ER and said I KNEW they both had the swine flu and they were dying and please save them from my reckless endangerment. They each were examined thoroughly and I was reminded that when a child tells you her ears are screaming at her, she typically has an infection. IN HER EARS. And my mother in law? Bronchitis. My first clue would have been that the place where her BRONCHIAL TUBES live felt dried up.
This was exactly as embarrassing as that time I ran my child to the ER at 3 in the morning because I KNEW she was asphyxiating and they KNEW she had the croup. Which, yeah….I’d effectively treated numerous times using only a shower and the agreeable Colorado nighttime air for over a decade with my boys. AND I’ve read Anne of Green Gables, like, a bazillion times.
They bill you three thousand dollars to sit in an ER overnight and watch Ed, Edd and Eddie re-runs with a one year old. Just sayin’.
Tagged with: 3of3, health, i hate bacon, Mother In Law, swine flu
BusyDad
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 1:19There is no worse torture than watching Ed, Edd and Eddie. I would rather have swine flu. Glad to hear the family is now properly diagnosed.
Special K
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 2:56I am glad they are on the road to recovery! I am just now barely recovering from a staph related pneumonia and like you I put it off and put it off until I had to talk my way out of the hospital (it is one of my superpowers) because it was Christmas and I had 12 people coming for 2 days and have two toddlers to care for blah blah blah. The doc said she would RATHER me of had swine flu because it is over in like 3 to 4 days. The ones you see in the hospital is rare and that is why we hear about them. I spent hospital amounts on doctors visits and paid 500 bucks for 2 shots in my booty and got to be the proud owner of my very own nebulizer! I spent 3000 and never stepped foot in a hospital, which is exactly why I was avoiding going to the doc in the first place (the $$ amount) well ha ha on me eh?
Zoeyjane
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 3:09I have the same problem, sort of. I over-react the first time and then after that? “Walk it off,” I say while eating bon bons. The first fever Zoë ever had went from non-existent to febrile and I Freaked. The. Eff. Out. Even though I’d read exactly 13.75 pregnancy and baby books, so I knew it wasn’t dangerous – the seizure, that is – and that I should call someone for advice on lowering her fever, but should start with Tylenol. So I did that: Spilled tylenol all over the floor while I hyperventilated on the phone with the Nurse Line, yelling, “Does She Sound Like She’s HAPPY?!” while simultaneously trying to breastfeed.
And then her body malfunctioned enough to bless her with 17 infections (14 in ears, alone!) within 18 months and besides wanting to jump off of a tall building, I’d see 103 on the thermometer and give her Tylenol. Then 2 hours later, Advil.
Basically, I’m all for drugging and she’s REALLY gotta convince me she’s, like, dying or bleeding a lot for an unexplainable reason if she wants me to get concerned.
MFA Mama
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 4:38Ugh. That was one of my resolutions this year: to just suck it up and go to the damn doctor when I need to but I? Suck at that.
Which is why I am up at 5:30 in the fucking morning with a throbbing ear I can’t hear out of; I did GO to the doctor but then waited (apparently) too long to take the antibiotics and…gave it another week to be sure it wasn’t an unrelated virus.
I’m so damn dumb with this stuff. So you’re not alone. Thankfully my idiocy seems to be confined to my own medical care, but it doesn’t exactly take a rocket scientist to realize that sick mom in single-parent home = nobody having a good day.
My fiance (oh yes, I’m getting married in five days, HAPPY HONEYMOON from the pharmaceutical industry gahhhh) said last night that he was glad it was my LEFT ear because he doesn’t drive due to some chronic health issues of his own and therefore “your RIGHT ear is the one that I’ll be yelling into all the way to the doctor’s office the first time you pull this on MY watch.”
We’re SO moving to the UK.
Kristin
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 8:33No, you’re not in the wrong. It’s the way it always goes…if you take a kid to the doctor, their fever ALWAYS breaks and they ALWAYS get a burst of energy the moment you walk in the peds office. So knowing this and you calmly wait out that fever and sinus congestion because by golly you’re not going to spend 20 bucks to have the pediatrician look at you like you’re that mom with Munchausen syndrome, the one time and then you finally break down and go and the doctor looks at you and says “why did you wait so long? She could have lost all her hearing with this raging infection.”
Parental Catch-22.
daniel
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 8:44Hey, my 4 year old daughter developed Pneumonia while on antibiotics for an ear infection. 2 days of “she’s on antibiotics, this will pass” turn out to be our big dumb action for the month. It’s not you. Then she had to go and pass on the Pneumonia to her older bother. Don’t tell me that shit isn’t contagious. I hate to post a link (only take like 3 minutes to read, promise), but on a related note, this is what happened when my “only sick with an ear infection” daughter was finally getting better:
http://www.dignews.com/blog/monks-blog/phamily-foto-phriday-5/
mommiebear2
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 8:48Wow, I hope everyone is feeling better soon. I am with you totally on the whole over or under react, my youngest was a preemie and seemed to always be sick. He would run high ass temperatures, Id freak and we’d be at the dr’s office or er only to be told it was viral, give me your money and there’s the door. Sooooo aggravating.
Nicole
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 8:51I’ve been watching the poptart pulling at her ear for a couple of weeks. Because it’s not constant, and she’s not screaming and she is teething. And besides, they’re not doing anything about ear infection anyways these days, right? That orange, goopy stuff in her ears? bah. She got my ears, probably, which have goopy stuff all the time (was that TMI?).
I have a doctor’s appointment Monday. If she’s still doing it and they’re still goopy, I’ll ask him to take a look. Yay for universal healthcare.
Audubon Ron
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 10:01Hoping everyone is mo betta now.
And what’s this duck stuff? Next thing I know you’ll be wanting to put lipstick on a duck.
April
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 11:35Well at least sometimes you overreact. I underreact to anything and everything that might possibly put us in the fucking health care system. I fucking hate the fucking health care system. Doctors, drugs, hospitals, and of course insurance, the whole fucking thing. So far, I haven’t killed the girls yet. I’ve just instilled in them my hatred of the fucking health care system.
adhocmom
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 13:11A totally reasonable reaction in my book — although you should know that my perfectly healthy two year old did feel the need to lay dramatically on our sofa today and ask me for “medicine.”
x,
Paula
http://www.adhocmom.com
Tara R.
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 14:38Last time I was in the ER I was watching old Sherlock Holmes movies… love me some Basil Rathbone. Hope all the peeps, young and old are up and running around very soon.
Wendy
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 16:10there are some sneaky, bad bugs out there! hope you’re all well and strong soon!
Kori
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 17:09I don’t have a related story to tell, nor can I top any of yours, so, well, hope everyone lives? Will that suffice?
Mocha
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 17:21You’re going to be my emergency contact from now on if only to write the funny shit that happens when I’m unconscious and internally bleeding. You can make that funny, can’t you?
rachel-asouthernfairytale
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 19:26You know what I’m going to comment on? Anne of Green Gables being one of my favorite books of all time.
(hugs)
pam
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 19:56Yeah, in MY house, you only go to the doctor if you have aterial gushing or a bone sticking through the skin.
‘Cept if Christmas is looming and my 12 yr old has a fever, body aches, sore throat, cough, ear pain, raging headache.
THEN, I go to the doctor, ‘cuz NUTTIN’S GONNA MESS UP CHRISTMAS DAMMIT!
They tested for strep. Negative. They tested for ‘flu. Negative. He was just sick. That’s all.
I know how you feel.
xandy
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 20:44welcome back to american health care. sorry for your wait in the er. and wait til you get the bill of what your insurance doesn’t cover. (ok, I’m hopin’ I’m wrong and you have excellent health care, but I’m just sayin. You’re not in Canada anymore.)
beyond all of that political tallywaggin’ – what I hope for most of all is that everyone has completely recuperated and is enjoying 2010.
Hockeyman
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 21:51Last time we were in an ER, which was a Christmas Eve, they didn’t even have a TV. But that damn smell is always there and always the same no matter where.
Sorry to hear your kids were that sick, nothing is worse. Glad to hear they’ll be getting better.
the planet of janet
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 22:18my favorite is non-specific viral syndrome.
that will be $20 please.
laskigal
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 22:38“I walked into the ER and said I KNEW they both had the swine flu and they were dying and please save them from my reckless endangerment.”
I wouldn’t have been embarrassed. Not one bit. There are some things you never, ever apologize for.
Overreacting in this case . . . is one of them.
Go you. That’s all I’m gonna say.
I mean, consider the alternative (If indeed you would have been right).
Damn. Am I being morbid? Pffft. Who cares?!
NukeDad
Wednesday, 6 January, 2010 at 23:00OH, DEAR GOD!!!
Ed, Edd and Eddy? I’m glad you survived. NukeBoy2 knows that if that show ever appears in this house again he loses TV privileges until he’s 30. He once made “Plank” out of a tongue depressor. Scary, scary show.
Stone Fox
Thursday, 7 January, 2010 at 0:29i am in the same boat as you. unless my kids are on fire and bleeding from the ears, we ain’t goin anywhere. i poo-pooh their illnesses and tell everyone the bug will be gone in a couple of days, for sure, no really, i’m a nurse and i know these things. then, when my kid won’t eat, is sucking in air, and has a stubborn fever for 5 days and looks like death warmed over, then i take him to emerg. where the dr gives him a neb and give me serious attitude. the ER doc informed me that a week-long fever is nothing and basically i just wasted his time; next time i shouldn’t worry until the fever goes for two weeks. two weeks? excuse me? well, dr. arsehole, i can only dope a fever with advil and tylenol for four days, so maybe you should get in touch with the tylenol and advil people and tell them to change the packaging. cause hell no i’m not dealing with zombie kids who are having fever seizures.
after that ER visit, i no longer worry about being “that mom” – you know, the mom who drags her kid to the ER every time he coughs. if it doesn’t go away in 4 days to a week, we’re going to see a dr. i, personally, am out of my league after 4 or 5 days. i need confirmation that my kid isn’t gonna drop dead.
Zakary
Thursday, 7 January, 2010 at 3:26“I’m so glad that puffed sleeves are still fashionable.”
Glad it wasn’t the swine flu.
Jeanette
Thursday, 7 January, 2010 at 8:38Glad it wasn’t swine flu! Why are you embarrassed? Imagine it was the swine flu and you ignored it?
Robina
Thursday, 7 January, 2010 at 19:45Ya know, I’ve always waited too long to take my kids to the doctor, too, cause I HATE those parents that rush their kids to the ER if they have an ache or a pain. For two of the four of my kids, I waited TWO freaking days to take them to get an ex-ray because 1) My son was a whiny baby who was always getting hurt and always thought he was dying, and yes, his arm was broke and 2) I had NO idea you could actually break an elbow, so I didn’t really believe my daughter when she said it hurt as bad as it did.
Yea, parent of the year, just pass it on over.
Susan Anderson
Thursday, 7 January, 2010 at 19:45Anne Of Green Gables, LOL. I’m glad it wasn’t Swine Flu.
Melanie @ Mel, A Dramatic Mommy
Thursday, 7 January, 2010 at 23:24Awww, poor dears. I hope they feel better soon. My son came home because he threw up at school. He came home, started playing with his toys. I ask what happened just before he upchucked. Was he on the playground? Was he running around? Was he on the swings? We conclude that he ate his lunch too quickly so he could play, then barfed. So we send him back to school. And he pukes again. The school nurse was not so polite during the second phone call.
julie
Friday, 8 January, 2010 at 0:44Sounds like the good ole US of A Grade A healthcare suckatude healthcare at work. 3K for an ER run? I wonder why people here in America don’t think losing EVERYTHING – house, car, marriage, kids, is worth ignoring what it seems the rest of the world takes for granted–healthcare that doesn’t bankrupt you.
Yes, I’m a nurse, yes I want to move to Europe before I get too much older. Because? I dont’ want to lose all my dough just because I got sick and needed healthcare.
julie
Friday, 8 January, 2010 at 0:44@julie, spellcheck, uh, no. sorry.
Jaina
Tuesday, 12 January, 2010 at 11:08Oh gosh, I hope they are both fully mended. And asthma sucks. I hate it.