Nov

6

Stewing

Filed Under Uncategorized | 53 Comments

Hey, thank you for the ideas, suggestions, and anecdotes with regards to ongoing childhood mystery ailments. Naturally, Riley seems perfectly fine today, excepting a brand NEW symptom: a husky, scratchy voice that sounds like the IT’S LINDSAY voiceover on The Soup.

I’m considering whether to visit the pediatrician today, or go on Monday when it’s theoretically possible they’ll have some flu vaccinations available, which they are not scheduling but if you happen to be there for unrelated reasons they might give your kid a shot.

*holds head, rocks back and forth in the corner, eats fistful of dog hair*

Speaking of the flu, JB’s brother called last night to tell JB he’d driven himself to the hospital with a 104 degree fever, got diagnosed with H1N1, and was sent home with Tamiflu.

There are a few things that seem notable to me about this, like how he actually got diagnosed and even got medication, despite being an otherwise perfectly healthy adult (I thought they were only giving out Tamiflu for high risk people?). I wonder just how much treatment fluctuation there is between different locations, like whether it’s easier to get care in a small city where Joe lives as opposed to our crowded Seattle-area population.

But I’m particularly struck by the fact that he actually got in the car and headed to the emergency room to have himself checked out. If it were me, I know exactly what I would have done: I would have laid on the couch boiling in my own juices, while pecking on my phone in order to complain on TWITTER about how I was probably dying and wasn’t that just my luck.

There’s a lesson here, I think, but it’s, like, really hard to stop moping about all my PROBLEMS long enough to ponder what it might be.

Nov

5

Diagnosis: mystery

Filed Under Uncategorized | 93 Comments

Okay, I could use some advice. Let’s say you have a four-year-old who has always been relatively healthy, aside from the usual childhoold viral suspects, and about six weeks ago he and his brother had a tandem night of Fever and Barf, the details of which you are still trying to suppress.

About a week after that, he had another barfing episode, this one even more dramatic in that it very nearly happened in your own bed and involved a truly horrific skidding-through-another-person’s-barf-in-bare-feet incident which, again, you’re really trying to forget except that sometimes when you least expect it you can still feel it. ON THE SOLES OF YOUR FEET.

Anyway! Then every week after that it seemed like someone was sick, your basic snot-nosed October crud that comes and goes and leaves snail-trails across every piece of furniture in the house. But the one thing that the four-year-old keeps complaining about, every week or two, is a headache and stomachache.

So a couple weeks ago you finally drag him to the pediatrician where she examines him and thinks maybe he’s got some leftover tummy irritation, either from the stomach virus stuff or the fever-quelling Motrin, and she prescribes Tums and Zantac. He leaves the doctor’s office seeming perfectly fine, then gets a fever that night which lasts for 48 mysterious hours.

Meanwhile, the toddler gets a fever, then a cold, then a cough—the lovely midnight barf-triggering kind—then seems fine, aside from the torrential mucus downpour erupting nonstop from both nostrils.

And THEN, tonight, the night when you and your husband have tickets to see Louis C.K., which you have been looking forward to all week with the fervent bulgy-eyed gaze of a donkey following a carrot, the four-year-old comes home from school complaining of a headache and stomachache. He collapses on the couch, looking pale and wan, and refuses food.

You cancel the babysitter and mentally kiss the date night and the $65 tickets goodbye. You would like very much to be left alone in a room filled with precious ceramic figurines and a large metal hammer.

Two hours later, the child has devoured a peanut butter sandwich, a glass of chocolate milk, a muffin, and a bowl of applesauce. He is chasing his brother around the room, screeching happily, and chattering about dinosaurs and skateboards. He goes to bed rosy-cheeked and seemingly full of robust health.

SO. My questions are:

• What the HELL? No, seriously: WHAT THE HELL?

• Okay, that wasn’t really a question. How about: should I go back to the pediatrician and just refuse to leave until she/he tells me what the fuck is going on, or what?

• Have any of you dealt with a comes-and-goes kid tummy Thing? Did anything help?

• What’s better for soothing an extremely bitter case of C.K.-related disappointment—ice cream, or salt and vinegar chips? OR BOTH?

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