Nov
5
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?
Nov
4
Man, that last post was kind of a drag, huh? You know what, I’ve been in a foul mood lately. I’m pissed off that JB probably can’t come to New Orleans with me. I’m sick of a no-longer-interesting work project that should have been finished months ago but continues to drag on and on and on with no end in sight. I’m irritated with my house for being a Sisyphean pit of clutter and laundry, and I’m practically apoplectic that we have fruit flies again after a weekend of guests who cannot finish a banana, preferring instead to leave the peel and uneaten half rotting in the fruit bowl. My hair sucks and I can’t afford my stupid stylist and her ass prices. I’m already tired of hearing rude jokes about the entire state of Maine.
My coping skills have all but disappeared, and the slightest problem makes me want to throw myself on the floor and scream. (And eat dog hair, maybe.) I’m tired, headachy, and puffy. I would cut a bitch for a bag of chocolate-covered potato chips.
It’s probably a brain tumor, right? There’s really no other logical explanation.
-
My product review site:
[