The boys are illin'. It started on Sunday with Bear. A 103 degree fever, listless apathy and miserability. Sore throat, no appetite, unquenchable thirst. All you parents out there are thinking "strep", right? So were we.
Sunday night featured Burger getting it. He was up the entire night crying and whining, just totally miserable. Monday morning brought Bacon into the mix with symptoms even more severe than the others.
A look down the throats Monday eve showed severe red irritation and white spots. Strep. Egad! After a relatively unsuccessful dinner of Jim's super-fluffy scrambled eggs (traditional sicko comfort food) we packed up the miserable lot and headed to the urgent care center.
Once we arrived the children performed the classic "Make our parents look like idiots" maneuver. The were suddenly energized, playful, running around, singing, dancing, performing delicate feats of hand-eye coordination and generally behaving like perfectly healthy tots. All you parents out there are thinking "Yup. Sure enough", right?
After an hour wait we were shown into the triage room where a couple of nurses tag teamed the boys for vitals and throat swabs. We were then ushered into an exam room where the boys proceeded to bounce off of the walls until the doc arrived. Long story short, no strep.
Oh, she tried to make us feel good about it. She said things like "Three boys with sore throats and fevers? I'd definitely bring them in" but we just knew she was secretly writing notes in the kids' files to the effect of "overprotective and burdensome parents - take all future complaints with heavy grains of salt".
At least we did get an official diagnosis of sore throats. I think the technical term was "sorethroatitisbutdefinitelynotstrepyouoverprotectiveburdensomeparents". It had a lot of letters anyway. She prescribed over the counter children's Motrin and set us on our way.
As we checked out the friendly nursing staff, in an obvious bid to mitigate the damage on our poor children that was caused by our overprotective and burdensome parenting skills, offered the boys some Popsicles.
Nurse: Would you boys like a Popsicle? It might help to mitigate the damage caused by your parents' overprotective and burdensome parental skills.All: [While doing jumping jacks and/or repelling from the ceiling in obvious cherry-goodness type health] Yeah!!
Nurse: What color would you like?
[Props to the nurse for asking the correct question here. Popsicles are no longer referred to type by flavor as the actual flavors have morphed well outside of anything found in nature. What once was 'lime' is now accurately termed 'green'. 'Grape' is properly called 'purple', etceteras. The only exception to this rule is 'orange', but that is only due to the foibles of the English language.]
Bear: I want green! It's my favorite color!
Nurse: Okay, and what about the rest of you?
Bacon: I want orange! It's my favorite color!
Nurse: Great, and what about you, little guy?
Burger: I want yellow!
Nurse: Yellow?
[The nurse loses points here. She got the most confused look on her face as if to say it was complete foolishness to suggest yellow as a
flavorcolor for a Popsicle. There are in fact yellow Popsicles. They are patterned after a flavor once known as 'banana'. Yes, that's right. Banana. Not lemon, which would be a perfectly fine flavor for a Popsicle. Banana. The decision to make bananaflavoredcolored Popsicles was made by the same person who decided to market Creamy Alfredo Ramen Noodles. Nobody likes yellow flavored Popsicles.]Nurse: We don't have any yellow. Can you pick a different color?
Burger: Okay, I'll pick my favorite color!
Nurse: And what's your favorite color?
All: [Expectant pause as Burger goes through a tough decision process. His little face screws up mightily and he delves through his mind to determine just what his favorite color actually is.]
Burger: Yellow!
Me: [sotto vocce] Told you he was sick.
Burger ended up with a red flavored Popsicle and all three also received toys from the 'Good Patient' grab box. Daddy was not allowed to have a toy despite the fact that it was he and not the children who held fiduciary liability for the evening's adventure.
Not that I'm bitter or anything.
Man, I've been up all night with my kid--104 fever, listless--all the traditional signs of terrible impending doom. As soon as we get to the doctors it's freakin miraculously cured just before the nurse calls us in.
My kid's doctor thinks I'm nuts.
It works like that with dogs too.
I took Crash to the vet because he wouldn't use his back leg and if I touched it, he cried in pain.
We get to the vet and he asks me to put Crash on the floor so he could watch him walk/not walk on his leg and Crash ran on all fours, jumped up in a chair, rode a unicycle while spinning plates on long sticks, etc.
I said to the vet, "I SWEAR to you he was in pain just a few minutes ago."
Riiiight.
I'm tellin ya, it's a damned conspiracy! I bet the insurance companies are behind it.
The Artist, when she was three , once came down with this something that started out with about five days of high fever (103-105) and some lethargy (but very active in between) and nothing else. When the fever broke, that is when she got the runny nose and cough. weird, huh?
:raising hand: Oooh! Ooooh! Was the long word "Pharyngitis"? I used to suffer from it all the time when I was a kid, only back then they gave antibiotics for it (which means I'll probably die someday from drug-resistant pharyngitis).
Oh, and we've all been there. The heathens are experts at getting better at precisely the wrong time.
That was it! Pharyngitis caused by overprotective and burdensome parenting!
She said it's something "viral".
Not that it matters....it was just Munchhausens anyways.hehehehe
Once, my Jen was quite ill with a stuffy nose, and what I suspected was strep. I took her to OUR fine intermediate care facility, and they proceeded to take her temp, check her blood pressure, and, finally, after I insisted, took a throat culture. The doctor came to the edge of the cubicle, spent 27 seconds talking to us, and after a wait of two hours, Nursie came into the cubicle with my bill, and said I was free to go, then walked off. I took the bill to the front desk, she looked at it and said, "That will be $122.50." (Did I mention we don't have health insurance coverage?) I asked if it would be too much trouble for someone to tell me exactly what the diagnosis was. The girl at the counter took the paperwork from my hand, and said, "It says right here. Congestion and pharmacitis"...."PHARMACITIS?!?!?!?!?!? You want me to pay 122.50 for you to tell me she had a stuffy nose, and a made up disease?!?!?!?!?" No one, of course, could tell me what exactly pharmacitis is...lol...and I stopped payment on the check when I got home.....