Streppin' up

Shelby was still sick this morning. As she was with her mother yesterday, I took her today and figured I'd be out from work for the day. I made a doctor appointment for Shelby and asked her where she wanted to eat. She barely ate anything the day before and I wanted to get some food in her, so I asked her to name the place. She didn't really come up with anything, so I suggested that scrambled eggs might go down easy on her sore throat. We ended up at IHOP, and she did eat some eggs, but she ate more hash browns than anything. At least she was eating.

We hung out at the IHOP, which was near her doctor, until her appointment. She did school work (we stopped by her classroom to get her two-days worth of work before heading to breakfast), and I used IHOP's free wi-fi to keep up with work email.

Once at the doctor's office, it seemed like we'd never leave. I had Shelby working on her classwork while we waited to be called, and she got a few things done. I think it was an hour before we were called, and then we were in the "little white room" for quite some time as well. Finally the nurse came in and did a "rapid strep" test. Right away the results showed positive, so there wasn't much for the doctor to do except confirm things.

The doctor asked Shelby if she wanted a one-time shot, or chewable pills (times 30). Naturally Shelby chose the pills, but I expressed that I'd rather do the shot and get it over with. The doctor said she'd like that as well since her strep was pretty bad, but Shelby was shaking her head "no way" the whole time. We took a vote, and Shelby was out-numbered. Immediately she started crying and kicking. Two nurses were called in, one to hold Shelby down, and the other to administer the shot. But that wasn't even enough, as the hold-down nurse asked me to get Shelby's hands. She was really kicking and screaming.

Shelby was pretty broken up about the whole experience, and I hated doing that as I have bad memories of a similar experience myself (when I was 6, in the hospital with asthma, being held down by several nurses that were trying to insert an IV), but I was pretty sure that her recovery would drag into next week if we didn't take the more drastic option. I know she'll thank me later (sort of).

While at the doctor's office, I got called into work to deal with a high-priority issue. So Shelby got to work on more classwork at the office. Towards the end of the day, I learned I would be trading Shelby for Darby, though not without complication.