This Little Piggy Went To Kaiser

So, last week totally sucked. It started out alright. Finally, it was time for day camps to start, so I was looking forward to a whole week to myself. But, first things are first, so I spent the whole of Monday reclaiming the house from the mess that always ensues after having Andy, Max and Jake in the house for an entire weekend. With that done, I was all set to start my new exercise regimen on Tuesday. I am determined, I will, once and for all, be disciplined and thin again. I swear it!

Camp pick up time came all too soon, so I headed off to get the boys. Max seemed a little listless, but he had been up way too late most of the week before, so I wrote it off to that. He is a definitely a boy who needs his sleep, that being said, he is not the type to get it on his own. No matter what time you put him to bed, he will always wake up between 5:30 and 6:00. AM. Surely, this odd behavior can only come from Andy's gene pool for it absolutely is not in mine. To me, 10:00 am is the crack of dawn and you are taking your life in your own hands if you mess with me much before noon. I began to suspect that something bigger was afoot when Max got a blanket and laid down on the couch during our post-camp visit to the Davis' house. "Does he seem warm?" I asked Mike. "Yeah, he seems warm." But we left it at that and finished our beers. Can we say Mother Of The Year? Then the coughing started. That's when the light bulb went off. Gasp. What if it's swine flu? I called Kaiser immediately and they said to bring him in straight away. First, I had to drop Jake at his swim meet and find a mother too look after him until Andy could get there. That job fell to Samira's mom because, unfortunately for her, she was the first person I saw who I knew could pick Jakey out of a lineup. On my way out the door she said to me "You know, a couple of kids on the swim team were diagnosed with swine flu, you might want to mention that to the doctor." Now I was in full on panic. On the drive to Kaiser, I managed to distracted myself from that horrible thought, by counting the number of people I would have to notify if Max did, indeed, have swine flu. The list was extensive when I took into account day camp kids, swim team families, the 80 people from the birthday party the day before, immediately family and our friends visiting from abroad whose son and Max spent most of their four days together, literally, head to head, watching each other play various handheld video game machines. As daunting as the list making turned out to be, at least it filled the whole drive. When we got to Kaiser, there was a giant sign by the door, "If you are showing signs of having the flu, please put on a mask and cleanse your hands." So we did as told. It was sad to see Max looking like he was one of Michael Jackson's kids. After a great deal of testing, waiting and brouhaha, it was finally decided that he did not have swine flu, but some other unpleasant and long lasting virus that happened to be going around. I was relieved that Max had something relatively benign, not to mention not having to make all those phone calls, but I was a little annoyed about being homebound with a sick child for a week. Oh well, fitness would have to wait.

The next morning Jakey woke up complaining that his ear hurt. I sent him to camp anyway, hoping it would resolve. I know, another notch in my Mother Of The Year belt, but the thought of the two of them being home and sick and fighting all day, was more than I could bear. You would think illness would make them less abusive toward one another, at least physically, but not my kids. My uncle explained this behavior to me when I asked him why he beat up my father, his younger brother. He said simply "Because he was there." Sort of like Mt. Everest. By the time Andy picked Jake up at camp the ear was hurting worse, so it was off to Kaiser for the second time in as many nights. No mask this time though. Swimmer's Ear was the proclamation. Hallelujah, he could still go to camp. In retrospect, this may not have been such a good thing. When I picked him up Wednesday, guess who had a fever. You guessed it, Jake. And not only Jake, but the Davis twins too. We had paid it forward. I was not feeling all too well myself, but I was preemptively medicating with copious amounts of 800mg ibuprofen and cold medicine refusing the acknowledge the baying wolf at my door. Evil virus, I rebuke you!

By Thursday I was really tired and quite unwell, so I went to bed at a decent hour, which I may have mentioned before is really not like me. Sadly, sleep was not in the stars for me. Jakey woke me up at 11:30 "Mommy I can't bweve." He had this horrible gurgling sound in his throat. It didn't quite sound like asthma, but the nebulizer was already out for Max and I didn't know what else to do. After the neb, he sounded a little better, but I thought I should take him in anyway, just to be safe. When I called Kaiser they said they weren't seeing any pediatric patients that night and I would have to take him to the emergency room. I was annoyed that I would now be paying a $50 co-pay instead of a $10 one, but I had no choice, so I got dressed. We were just about to go out the door when the gurgling sound got really, really bad. Jakey couldn't catch his breath, so after a few seconds of panic we decided to call 911. That's when Jakey started throwing up. Andy dealt with Jake, while I was on the phone. The dispatcher said she would send an ambulance right away. I went to the bathroom to tell Andy and Jakey looked up and me and said "Hey mom. I feel better!" Then he gave me a thumbs up. Again, I was relieved he wasn't dying, but was not looking forward to being treated like a hysterical mother by the paramedics. Of course, they came with lights and sirens a-blastin', despite the fact that it was now a little after midnight. Now the whole neighborhood was awake and witness to Christina's overreaction. Great. The paramedics came in and quickly realized that all was well. I tried to explain to them the intensity of the situation at the time I called, but they didn't seem to be buying it. Andy asked them if they were from the West Springfield fire station and they said they were. "Oh, you guys were the ones who delivered him." I wasn't really too happy with Andy bringing up the story of me giving birth in front of my sister-in-law's house with a group of people who already thought I was a crazy, histrionic and hysterical woman, so I hoped his comment would go by quickly, when one of the paramedics said "Oh yeah! You were in the front yard when we got there! I was telling someone about that just the other day" Swell. What a reunion.

Friday managed to go by without a visit with any medical personnel and I thought the week was finally looking up. Then Saturday came and along with it Jakey's first A Team swim meet. It seems with all of his regulars out of town for the 4th, Coach Christopher was desperate to fill a couple slots on the 8 & Under Relay team, so he recruited Jake simply because he was there and mildly capable of swimming from one end of the pool to the other without touching the bottom (an immediately disqualification) or drowning. Of course, nothing with Jakob is easy. He whined and fussed and fretted from start to finish. He refused to do warm ups. I tried to talk him into it, then Coach Christopher tried, then Coach Michelle tried, then Andy. He steadfastly refused. Then Andy and I got in a fight on how best to proceed. He comes from the school of "let's give him some time" and I come from the school of "get your ass out there and do it NOW!" A mix of our approaches finally worked and the big event came. He was the second one to swim and all seemed to be going well until he realized the first swimmer on his team was losing to the other team's swimmer and he knew they would only get further behind when he swam. That's when the waterworks started. But, to his credit, he jumped in the pool and made his way across, crying every time he pulled his little head out of the water to catch a breath. His group lost horribly, but we were very proud nonetheless.

We made our way home to get some much needed rest before the Davis' 4th of July party. I was looking forward to getting a nice hot shower and good long nap when I discovered what looked to be some sort of poo-like substance in my bathroom sink. Ahhh, the cherry on top of a spectacular week. I called Andy in for a consult. His estimation was that it was, indeed, poo, so we brought in the usual suspects. It turned out to be Jakey's handy work. He had a little accident in his underwear and tried to take care of it himself. Andy's reaction was "aren't you proud of him trying to take care of it on his own? He handled the situation like a big boy." I thought to myself "Andy hit the nail right on the head, Jakey handled it just like someone afflicted with that pesky Y chromosome." Then I realized they had all wandered back downstairs to play video games and left me with a sink full of poo. That's when I gave up and decided to take a page out of their book. I laid down and left it for later. I refuse to clean poo out my sink on a national holiday. That's what the 5th of July is for.