Complications of a sick child

I got the call at 8:30. Shelby is sick and needs to be picked up from school.

Drat. It's every parent's worst non-emergency fear. Obviously a serious injury or something would be a worst fear, but most parents that have had to juggle work issues and a sick child at the same time understand that there are complications involved with that, and they fear that situation on a near daily basis when they know their child is teetering on the edge of being ill.

So, I picked Shelby up from school and took her to work with me. On the way to work, I called her doctor's office and asked if they thought they needed to see her. After I described what was going on with her, they said they wanted to see her. So, we got an appointment -- 3:45pm... yuck -- and headed to my office.

Shelby was very good this morning at the office, probably the best she'd ever been, for which I was thankful. Mostly she drew pictures and then started to watch a movie. One of my standard practices if I have to bring a kid to work is to also bring the portable DVD player, headphones, and a few movies so they won't be bored out of their minds (my office isn't exactly an exciting environment for kids). So she picked Lilo & Stitch and watched the first half of it before lunch while I was trying to get caught up from being out a big chunk of the morning.

One last note of interest concerning this morning, Shelby decided to put an orange dot sticker on her nose, and she walked around with it there all day, despite my requests that she remove it. She can be a strange one at times.

So we went to lunch at Mazzio's, but she said she didn't feel well enough to eat, though I tried multiple times to get her to eat something. Thanks to Rob who snapped that splendid photo of Shelby with the orange dot on her nose while we were at lunch. Shelby was pretty goofy for a girl that was supposed to be sick. And towards the end of lunch she asked me if she could play games in the arcade, so I gave her my only two quarters (had no small bills) and said go play what you can. Well, she came back not long after and said that she had put a quarter in the candy machine and nothing came out and that she thought it took two quarters. So I asked her to go put the other quarter in it to get the candy, which she ran off to do. Again she came back not long after and said that she had put the other quarter in a racing game, but it wouldn't start and that maybe it needed two quarters. I'm going to leave that part of the story right where it is, because I'm still shaking my head in disbelief.

We got back to the office and finally got settled back in with her continuing to watch her movie, as I had to get on a conference call to work out some technical issues. Well, the conference call ended up lasting two hours, but about halfway through the call, Shelby's movie ended. Though I put another movie in for her, she was already bored with that, so she kept doing the "when are we leaving" thing every five or ten minutes as I was trying to answer questions in the conference call. I finally got her to get interested in drawing again, and before long it was a little quiter than I expected it to be. When I turned around to check on her, she had fallen asleep in the chair. I'm certain she needed that.

I finished my conference call about 3pm, which gave me very little time to wrap things up and get to the doctor's office, which was across town. Well, I had three things I had to do before I left, so it ended up being like 3:20 before we got out of there, and then I lost my car in the parking lot at the worst possible time. So there I am, carrying all kinds of stuff (my work stuff, and the stuff I brought to entertain Shelby), holding my sick daughter's hand, looking for my car, and it's thirty degrees out with a firm wind, making it probably more like fifteen or twenty degrees with wind chill, which isn't exactly great on the sick daugher, and I can't find my car, all along with the clock ticking on a drive that I knew would take at least twenty minutes.

When I finally found the car, the cell phone rang. Argh. It was the ex-wife calling me back (she tried to call me during that conference call to find out what was going on with the doctor, but I couldn't take her call), so I handed the phone to Shelby and asked her to talk to her mom so I could get on the road if we had any hope of making it on time. It was like 3:26 when we finally got up to full speed. So I got the phone from Shelby, let the ex-wife know I was headed to the doctor's office, and she said she would meet me there.

Shelby and I got to the doctor's office right at 3:45. Despite all of our hurrying, everything got mollases slow right then.

First problem, the receptionist wanted us to fill out all new paperwork, which they make us do once a year. So I picked an argument with her, which probably wasn't the best idea, but man she can be abrasive sometimes (or maybe it was me being abrasive). I asked for blank copies of the forms (aside from what I had to fill out) so that I could take them home, scan them in, and fill the forms out digitally and just bring them new copies at each visit since none of that information has changed in seven years. I think she thought I meant that I wasn't going to fill out new forms right then, so I had to re-clarify after some initial banter back and forth ("sorry your information hasn't changed, but we don't get paid if you don't fill out these forms", "if you don't fill out the forms you can pay the full price of the visit" etc etc) that I intended to fill out the needless forms but just wanted extra copies to take with me. Argh.

Second, the waiting room was way packed. We ended up being in the waiting room for more than an hour, so I'm definitely glad we hurried and all. Amy read several books to Shelby, and then we watched home movies. I had brought my camera bag in with me (you never know when Shelby might strike a pose) which has both my digital camera and my digital camcorder in it, so we watched some of Darby's recent birthday footage, and some of Shelby's dance performances before they finally got around to calling us. But before we move on, take note that while we waited, Shelby said she had to use the restroom, but when I took her, she changed her mind and said she didn't have to go.

Third, once we were called from the big waiting room to the little waiting room, we were in the little waiting room for another thirty minutes before we saw the doctor. About five minutes of that waiting was the questions from the nurse about Shelby's condition, as well as the height (44in)/weight (46lbs) measurements. The rest of the time was idle time, and again I was glad we hurried. But Shelby once more said she had to go potty, so I took her again, only for her to say she wanted to hold it. No matter how much I argued with her, she wouldn't go into the bathroom and make use of it. So we went back to the little waiting room to continue our exciting times. One of which was Shelby informing us that she could touch her nose with her bottom lip (I call this one "Shelby's bitter (root)beer face" or "Shelby's rendition of the scene from the Matrix, 'what good is a phone call if you are unable to speak'" ... note the still present orange dot). Again, no one said Shelby wasn't a bit on the strange side (not unlike her father).

Finally the doctor arrives (this rant is nothing on her, she's great, really), and Shelby suddenly has to go potty and can't hold it anymore. Gasp. I tell her she will have to wait at this point, because she had quite some time and two chances to avoid this problem. And oh by the way, at this point it was after five o'clock and time was starting to dwindle before one of us was going to have to go pickup Darby.

As I feared, the time reached 5:30, and we were still in with the doctor, so I had to excuse myself to drive back across town to pickup Darby from her school after care while Amy stayed behind with Shelby at the Doctor's. About fifteen minutes later, as I was on the way to get Darby, Amy called me and said they were done, so I gave her a location to meet me at after I got Darby.

When I got to Darby's school, it was the worst time for it, but it was one of those "hunt for your child" moments, as they are not always where you expect them to be. Usually they are in one of the classrooms downstairs, but sometimes they are in the gymnasium, or sometimes in an upstairs classroom. After exhausting those three options, it was determined that they were in the library, which is rare for after care, but I finally got her ready to go and we headed off to meet her mother, as the kids were due to stay with mommy tonight.

So you think I am done, but not quite. After I saw Darby and Shelby off, I headed to the pharmacy to drop off the three prescriptions that we got for Shelby, and then I went to get a bite to eat while they were getting that ready. Of course, I arrived back at the pharmacy thirty minutes after they said they'd have it done, only to find they were not quite done yet. I probably waited at the pharmacy at least twenty minutes for my $43 in prespcriptions (only to find later that they had forgotten one... I had ordered a refill for a separate prescription for Shelby a few days before and asked that they include that with this order, but they must have forgotten... so I have to go back tomorrow). But wait there's more! About halfway through my wait, the pharmacy tech informed me that I would have to changes lanes since I had used the outside lane, which uses is small pneumatic tubes, and one of Shelby's prescriptions (a new inhaler) wouldn't fit in the tube. However, there was already a line for the inside lane, which uses a large drawer for big items, contributing to my overall waiting experience.

Finally, I got to head back across town to the ex-wife's house so that I could get Shelby going on her medications.


It may not have come across this way, but the whole experience was a bit exhausting. I am A LOT more tired than I usually am this time of day.