what a night

yesterday, jaden woke up complaining of a bellyache. she had had the same complaint the night before too. she barely ate all day and keep falling asleep sitting in chairs. she never naps during the day, even when she's sick. the the fever hit. and she cried. when i asked her where it hurt, she rubbed the right side of her tummy. i called greg who was at work with the truck and carseats and he hightailed it home.

after calling her doctor, who agreed it needed checking out (but was too far away for us to get to as it was closing time for her) we headed to the hospital with jaden and sage, leaving the older two at home to finish dinner and watch lavender. we arrived at 5:30.

at 7:30 we finally got seen and was told by a nurse that he'd have some cultures run to test for a virus. wtf? i said to him, so you don't think it might be appendicitis? he mumbled something about the pediatrician on staff would be in soon and fled. he never came back in again and another nurse took over (it wasn't a shift change, he just stopped seeing us, he was still wandering the halls after that.) the new nurse took us more seriously and asked a series of questions. the doctor got to us around 830pm. funny how we kept being asked the same questions over and over again...diarrhea? no. vomiting? no. sore throat? no. runny nose? no. on and on. didn't anyone actually write this info down?! it was insane. so the doctor said definitely something, either a uti or appendicitis. finally!

sage was going nuts at this point. mind you, we've had no dinner and he's not napped all day. we were told we wouldn't be leaving until at least 11pm as she wanted to do urine and blood work and a ct scan. so, i took sage home to get to bed and get some dinner and left greg with jaden, very reluctantly.

i forgot to mention that during the initial part of this, my daughter called to inform lavender had died. so, i had a dead goat in my kitchen and a sick kid in the hospital. oh, the joy.

i went home, got sage into his jammies, nursed him to sleep, ate a couple of hard boiled eggs and a bagel and then flew off to the store to get ice cream. greg had called while i was getting sage to sleep, jaden begging me for ice cream. the store, who's sign says open daily 7 a to 11p was closed. CLOSED. at 10:20pm. agh! so, i had to drive a few towns over to walgreen's, the next closest place. then, back to the hospital. about 5 minutes after i walked in, they came to take her to do the ct scan. that was at 10:40. then more waiting for the results.

everything came back negative except the urine. hooray! it was a uti! she gave us a prescription for a really nasty antibiotic and wanted her to take a dose last night. greg wanted her to have it even though i was against it. we went back to that walgreens to fill it and while we waited, i read off the list of horrorific side effects (including death). that was enough to get him to agree to wait and call the doctor today and discuss the necessity of this crap. so, the cranberry juice (no sugar added kind) is on the counter and waiting for her to wake up. not to mention a whole slew of herbs for teas and in tincture form to take.

we got home around 1230 last night. it really is sad the way our health care system is set up, all aspects of it. it is ridiculous to force tired and hungry kids to go hours without any relief like that. there has got to be a better way.