Fuel to the Fire

At about 9:30 p.m. in a hospital basement elevator I turned to H and said, "Oh you know I will be blogging about this tomorrow!"

After getting home a tad early yesterday armed with my budget spreadsheet, game plan, and mind set to argue my point about staying home and doing freelance writing full time I found it was all for naught. H came home late and while kissing T.D. on the head asked this question, "How is that bite on her arm doing?"

Ummmm...what? Oh right the mosquito bite. "I don't know", I replied. H looks at T.D. and says, "Well it was worse this morning. I put that long sleeve shirt on her so daycare wouldn't see it. "

Again, WHAT?!? I roll up T.D.'s sleeve. Oh my HORRORS! The tiny red bite from the other day is now a pussing, scabby mess complete with a bright red ring around it. T.D. herself seems fine. Spiders do not bring down dictators, coups de etat's do. She is the queen of no reaction.

It is now too late to call her pediatrician. We have to go to that mess of an ER. On the drive over H remarks, "I'm sorry, I don't know why I ignored it. I saw it was getting worse. I should have called you earlier to let you know and you could have gotten her in to see her doc." Yup. I am almost in tears.

The waiting room to the ER is packed. A girl of about 9 is puking in a tupperware bowl on the floor. A teary-eyed woman of 60-something has tried to commit suicide and is crying and saying, "I am so sad, just so sad." to her husband. Many infants are in the waiting area with tired, worried parents seated with us in plastic chairs. I fill out the form stating that T.D. has pox. I should have written small pox. That is what it looks like. I'm sure they thought it was of the chicken variety. The wait is 7 hours and counting. It's going to be a long night.

After an hour H and I decide to chance it an go to the military base ER. It's close by and there's almost never a wait. We hate using it as last time they told H he had a cold when really he needed his neck cracked by a chiropractor. But we thought, it can't be that bad.

HA!

T.D. is not in the system. The door to the room to fill out her forms is locked and in the hospital basement. We finally find a man willing to unlock the door and dummy up a file for her. Thank God. I think the twitching parent, almost hostile yet crying thing I had going helped. That over and done with we head back upstairs to have T.D.'s vitals checked.

As I unzipped her teddy bear pj's I see a pin-point red rash forming on her chest. What is this?! That was not there before! The nurse assures me it is ok. T.D. will be fine, her vitals are good. She also assures me that it isn't a bite. There are no biting spiders here. Just in Missouri. Uh, ok. Missouri? This is why I hate the military doctors. They come out with the most inane crap!

H, T.D. and I are brought into a special quarantine like room. Great. My kid has the pox. Wonderful. Anthrax. Thoughts of plastic tenting over our house like E.T. cloud my thoughts. I will not cry! She will be fine. The doctor comes in and takes a look. He has no idea what it is. Must be some sort of bacteria and decides we need to culture it. It takes an orderly, H and I to hold T.D. down. I whisper to her and humm as she screams all bloody hell as they razor blade the infected area, turning a brilliant shade of red. This is truly terrible. This is what is so awful about being a parent. My poor T.D. is so upset. No one knows what is really wrong with her but here we are getting antiobiotics for it.

Hours later we are home. She takes her meds and is off to sleep. I toss and turn all night listening to her snores. Today she is fine. Her pediatrician saw her bright and early. Guess what?! Diagonsis. Spider bite.

For the love of...

But here is the silver lining. Through all this while sitting in our plastic hospital chairs I quietly stated I wanted to stay home. H readily agreed. He and I both knew that things like this would not be such a dramatic case if I was home. So starting in the new year I will be.