You funny lady!

OK, so today sucked toast. My poor baby is sick. Lil’s fever spiked at just under 104 today and this kinda freaked my shit out. You have to understand that we are not doctor people. We don’t do well baby visits (although now I see a value in them, more on that later) and are generally distrustful of what an MD tells us. Why? Let’s just say my experiences with MD’s have been less than stellar and I’ve found a lot more respect and gentle healing in alternative medicine.

But one look at Lily and my resolve started to break down. Her eyes are all glassy, she has a horrid cough, is a cuddle monster (and is usually pretty “myself!” with me), keeps falling asleep in random places and when she awakes, if I’m not immediately there to stroke her head or hold her she starts crying and calling for me in the most pathetic voice I have EVER heard. I called Mark and we talked about what we should do and agreed that if she wasn’t better tomorrow, I’d take her to a Pediatrician. I called around to the two peds in town I had heard really good things about and neither had an opening tomorrow, but one could see her in about an hour. What the hell, I’ll take it.

OMG. Taking two kids to the doctor sucks. The whole thing sucks. The adventures started while I simultaneously attempted to fill out paperwork*, nurse a fussy baby and comfort my sick and sad two-year-old. In the midst of all of this, a nurse shows up and calls Lily’s name. So now I’m juggling a clingy toddler, still nursing the baby in the sling, trying to figure out how to pick up the HUGE diaper bag (why do I carry all this crap around, anyway?) and feeling a little stressed about the incomplete paperwork in hand. I got an assist from the nurse and we trundled off to a room.

After stripping my sad girly naked we weighed her (crying) and discovered she is 23.14 lbs, then the nurse asked me if she’d pee in a cup. Ummm, she won’t regularly pee in a potty, what’s the chance I can get her to pee in a little cup. You funny lady, OK! Love you long time! “That’s OK, we’ll just bag her.” OK, I watch lots of doctor shows and I had no idea what she meant by that but I feared she was casually suggesting shoving a catheter into my child. “What do you mean by that?” I asked, not wanting to jump to conclusions. “Oh, we just put a bag in her diaper.” Well that’s totally acceptable, HAD IT BEEN TRUE. But before I talk about that, let me tell you about getting her temp taken. It is my job, as mother, to avoid having strangers shove instruments up my child’s ass. Even if they are lubricated and thin instruments, I have still betrayed her by allowing it to happen and she let me know all about it. And here I am telling her it’s OK. NOT OK IF YOU’RE THE ONE THEY ARE DOING IT TO. I am such a liar.

Now back to the bagging. It’s no simple matter of sticking a bag in her diaper. NO. They first smear her with iodine in order to gain a “clean catch” which isn’t painful, but it isn’t pleasant when you are a confused and irritable sicky. Then they STICK the bag to her little coochie. OK, I want all you folks to find a smooth spot of skin in your neither regions and scotch tape a ziploc to it. Now try to move around a bit. Can you feel the extreme discomfort? “OFF!” She hollered. “All done? OFF! All done! Hurt, hurt, hurt! OFF!” And so it went. She never did pee in that thing and I’m willing to bet no self respecting toddler EVER has!

At least the doctor was nice, as the people I had spoken to about her had suggested. Oh, and they gave her a popsicle, which went over very well (and was some of the only fluids she took in all day). Doc's all about minimal interventions and is respectful of the choices we have made in parenting. She even made a comment about how she never could figure out how to nurse her child in a sling. I never could do it easily in other slings but in my Planet Zebes sling, it’s totally doable (thanks Daph! MWAH!).

Lily's lungs didn’t sound great and the nifty little device they use to measure oxygen in the blood (without poking any holes in the child, YAY!) showed numbers that were less than inspiring. She’s ordered a chest x-ray and we’re going to attempt to make that happen tomorrow if the fever isn’t down. I took her to Dr. Joe’s afterwards and she got a really good adjustment. He spent a good ten minutes just feeling and subtly adjusting her neck. She also got her first ever serious neck adjustment and while it scared her at first she quickly calmed down. And this brings me to the point I made about the value of well baby visits. Dr. Joe has been adjusting Lily since she was 11 hours old. She knows him very well and despite the fact that she didn’t want anyone touching her today, she allowed him to spend a great deal of time working on her. She trusts our chiropractor to help her and so allows him to do what’s needed. I think our appointment with the MD would have gone hella-better had she known the woman. *Also, if we had been doing well baby check-ups I wouldn’t have had to try to fill out paperwork today.

Anyway, she is now cuddled on her daddy’s lap watching Chicken Run and eating cookies (graham crackers). Mark picked up some popsicles on the way home so at least we have a way of getting her to take some fluids. We’ll go back to the chiro tomorrow for another adjustment and hope we keep seeing an improvement. I don’t like my baby hurting. I don’t like watching her little eyes roll back in her head all feverishly. I want her better. NOW. Someone make it happen.