Another Visit to the ER

Aiden woke up at 7:30 this morning screaming his head off. That's not like him at all, so I ran into his room and I could feel the heat radiating off him from 2 feet away. Not good. I took his temperature and it came up at 103.6 and climbing. I gave him some Tylenol and put him in a cool bath to try to bring it down as much as I could. We only have one car right now, and Chris usually takes it to PT, so I grabbed my phone to call him to see if he could come home and take us to the ER. I dial his number and his cell phone rings - right next to the bed. Great, he forgot his phone, what am I going to do now? Aiden really needs to go to the ER, with that high of a temp I'm not playing around. So I decided that since we are only about 4 blocks from the hospital, we'll just walk. Then I remembered that Chris ran over my nifty double stroller with the car a couple days ago. I checked the stroller and it still works, just a little beat up. It'll work. Aiden's still in the bath, so I got dressed as fast as I could, got Jack changed and dressed, got the diaper bag together, got cups of juice and bags of Cheerios, a bottle and some binkies. All in about 10 minutes. I get Aiden out of the bath - he's still crying - and get some clothes on him. I really don't want to take both of them down there, but I don't have a choice, I'm just glad the weather is back up to the high-60's today. So we get loaded up into the run-over stroller and start down the driveway when Daddy turns the corner in the Explorer. Thank God!

I explain the situation, he helps me load the kids up into the car and hands me the keys. He can't come with me because he's in the middle of the OC Academy right now and he can't miss today. Good ol' Army. No big deal, it's not like I'm a stranger to dealing with things by myself. So we get to the hospital and get checked in. After seeing the nurse for the initial vital signs exam, we sit in the waiting room for almost 2 hours. While this is never an enjoyable experience, it's even more fun with a sick 3 year-old and a happy, wired 8 month old who wants to get down and crawl around on the dirty hospital floor. We finally get called to see the doctor. I load them both back into the stroller and the nurse stops me.

"We only allow the child being treated into the treatment room. The other one has to stay in the waiting room."

"Okay, well, there's only me. I'm not leaving my 8 month old in the waiting room by himself." I really wanted to insert the word dumbass in there somewhere, but I restrained myself.

"Where's your husband, can you call him?"

"No, my husband is unavailable right now, which I'm sure is not an unusual occurrence on an Army base." Double the dumbass thought.

"Well, we really can't allow him into the treatment room."

"Well, I really can't allow him to remain in the waiting room unattended, so you'll have to deal with it, because my older son needs to be treated. Are you going to turn us away?" Don't mess with me, I'm in Mama Bear mode right now.

"No...just don't let him touch anything. We don't want him getting sick as well."

Yeah...the fact that they live in the same house together and share a room makes no difference....I swear, some people have no common sense at all. Anyway, after Nurse Hatchet left the doctor came in and looked at Aiden. No ear infection (there's a first), no sinus infection or lung infection. It's probably viral. Just keep giving him Tylenol and Motrin and keep an eye on him. Other than that there's nothing we can do. You mean after all that, I get a "give him Tylenol"? Sheesh. If the fever is not gone within a couple of days I'm supposed to bring him back. Fun.

So...we're in watch mode. He seems to be okay, the fever is down for now and he's playing, (and watching Star Wars) but he sure looks sick. Big bags under his eyes, and he's pale. He's got a runny nose to go along with the fever, so I'm sure he's feeling just great. Let's just hope my Happy Jack lucks out and doesn't catch it as well!

Now for the coffee I didn't get this morning....