These are not the words you want to hear from your child’s doctor.  Period.

In fact, they took me from a CASUAL TIPETOEING UP TO AND LEANING OVER TO GAZE AT THE VIEW FROM ABOVE TO A FULL BLOWN SWAN DIVE OVER THE EDGE!

I wonder how many time pediatricians see their patients’ parents cry?

We were supposed to bring Little B in for a third injection of the big daddy antibiotic today.  Andy brought her into the doctor’s office before 9am this morning and the nurses would not administer the drug without any doctors in the office.

Andy caught me on instant messenger and asked if I could take her in for the shot later in the day.  My day was booked until 4:30pm but Andy thought the doctor’s office was open til 6, so we agreed that I would take her in after my meetings.  He mentioned offhand that there was a bit of a knot in her leg where they had administered the last shot.  I was surprised how casually he mentioned it and that he had not marched to the bathroom where I was getting ready this morning and insisted I come see for myself.  I figured it must not be that concerning…

I picked her up from day care and asked how things went today.  Apparently she was really tired and actually crawled up to her little crib before the usual nap time and laid her head down, so they put her in her crib and napped early and for a long duration.  When I picked her up, she clearly was not feeling well, but it was different than what we have seen over the past two weeks, more “out of it” than anything else…Strange.

I put her in the car seat and we braved 5 o’clock traffic.  I began to get concerned when she was not chatting or fussing or much of anything except for staring at the seat in front of her.  I tried to provoke her to tears, laughter, anything which only resulted in a few blinks and a partial smile.  PANIC!  At least I was on the way to the doctor’s office.

We arrived at the office to the administrator locking up.  Oh no, apparently they close at 5pm.  Between Belén’s blank stare and the sheer panic on my face, we won her over and she allowed me to enter the office.  I could hear B’s doctor talking in the background so I knew I could convince her to see us.

As a side note, I would normally respect business hours because I do appreciate people have lives and there are closing times for a reason, but at this point, I was convinced Belén was in real danger and therefore my typical m.o. of respecting people’s personal schedules went out the window.  How do doctors deal with this day in and day out?

As I was checking in, I started inspecting her leg to see what Andy was talking about and I saw something that looked about like this.

Gasp.  That doesn’t look right.  I BETTER GET A LOOK AT THAT VIEW FROM CLOSER TO THE EDGE.  She also started to scream as if in pain when I played with her legs.

After we got into the exam room and I took off her pants, I saw this.

LOOK DOWN, NOTICE AN EAGLE SOARING BELOW.

A similar pattern exists on the other leg and on her arms and even a slight bit on her ear.  The doctor immediately took a look and also pointed out that B’s feet and hands were swollen.  THE URGE TO SOAR WITH THE EAGLE IS SO OVERPOWERING.

Doctor continues to examine her body talking through what she was seeing.  She remained calm but it was clear this was not a common occurrence.  She seemed to think it was likely a reaction to the medicine but before she decided what to do next she wanted to “consult with the pediatric infectious disease specialist.” THE URGE IS TOO STRONG, THE EDGE PULLED ME OVER.

I started sobbing.  Belén looked at me like, “what’s going on mom?”

A million questions from me later, post-pediatric infectious disease consult, Dr. B. concluded it was likely an allergic reaction to the injection she had received both two and four days earlier.  She wanted us to take her to get her blood drawn so they could finalize the diagnosis and determine if any treatment was needed.

I called Andy mid consult sobbing.  He immediately wanted to know where to meet me and we agreed to meet at the hospital where her blood was to be drawn.

Long story slightly abridged, we learned how difficult it is to draw a baby’s blood and then heard back from the on call doc an hour later saying her platlet count looks “normal.”  What a roller coaster!

The positive side of all this was how happy Belén was tonight after she had some Tylenol in her system.  She had an appetite, was giggling and a genuine happy girl.  It reminded us of our lives two weeks ago and of how surely things will be again soon.

This sick, full time working parent of a sick kid thing is really taking its toll on us.  Andy and I are both still fighting the cold bug ourselves.  I think I will need to do an abridged version of our run this weekend because I just don’t feel strong enough to run more than three hours…  This too shall pass and we will look back on it like all parents do when their young children were sick, comparing war stories.  But honestly, I read on a piece of paper at the doctor’s office that young kids get 8-10 colds before the age of 2.  If even half of them are as dramatic as this flu/cold/hacking cough/ear infection/teething/allergic reaction sequence has been, I might become very familiar with that EDGE.  I am not sure if they sell large enough quantities of dark chocolate to handle it!

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The blog is under construction again.  As if I didn’t have enough chaos in my life right now, I got bored with the new layout and went shopping for something different.  And like everything else in my life right now, I do not have time to do it right, so I hope to fix it this weekend.

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