Momnesia

Long Time Listener, First Time Mom

I've read so much about illness in infants and toddlers that I impressed our pediatrician with my knowledge of childhood diseases, right down to statistics about their probablity. So last night when I saw the temperature readout of 103.8 on our fantastically expensive and amazingly accurate award-winning ear thermometer, I did what any well-informed mom does.

I totally freaked the hell out.

Crashing into the bedroom with Emerson in my arms, I smashed the lightswitch with my arm.
"Honey! The baby has a fever! Get up!"
Mmmmm? He mumbled from underneath the blanket.
"Scott! Emerson is sick. She has a temperature of 103. What should we do?"
I ran into the kitchen and then into the living room, a panic-lap without purpose. My head spun wildly while Emerson whined. I ended the lap in the bedroom, where she burst into tears.
"Gah! Honey?! Get up! She's sick!"

Back in the living room, we sat down on the couch and rocked back and forth as I held her and checked her temperature again. Scott stumbled in.
"104.2! Do you think we should we take her to the hospital?" I asked, tearfully.
"Well, yes!"
Another panic-lap around the apartment.
"Honey, what are you doing?"
What am I doing? WHAT am I doing? Pants. We need pants - on ourselves. We stuff ourselves into the car that we haven't cleaned out since Moses parted the Red Sea and all that sand and shipwreck debris flew in through the windows.

"Where's the emergency room?" he asked, driving frantically.
"Um, turn left here." Wrong.

We circled the hospital for a few very tense minutes until we found the pediatric ER. I sprinted in with the baby in my arms, but no one even blinked as I dashed up to the registration window with a bawling infant- in fact, the nurse actually waved me away.

"I'll call you in a minute," she said, and walked off to do something not even remotely related to curing my daughter of the terrible creeping death that was upon her. Whore. of. Babylon. Get your ass back here.

My daughter, screaming because her brain was surely boiling in her perfect little round head, wriggled in my arms and pushed her bottle away. I stood her on the floor while I searched for her pacifier and - amazing. Babbling and pointing at things around her, she toddled off across the room. Feverish and stumbling, she was still determined to continue her usual exploration and domination of her surroundings.

We spent nearly 5 hours in the ER, about 10 minutes of it with a doctor, who gave her Tylenol and sent us on our way: "She may get sicker and start throwing up or have diarrhea. Let us know if there's a change." I don't want to name the buttheads at the other hospital, but let's just call them Moronic Crappy Good-for-nothings.

The pediatrician saw on Monday and asked about the results of her bloodwork. "Bloodwork?" I asked.
"They did do bloodwork, didn't they?" he asked, as his eyes widened.
"No!" I said. "It was 45 minutes before the stupid nurse even took her name."
He shook his head, "Look, don't go back there. Go to University next time. That's where you had her, that's where I do neonatal rounds, and their pediatric ER is open until 2:30 a.m."

Ultimately, Emmie is fine, but we both have "something in the mono family." I didn't know mono had a whole family, but thanks for having the reunion at my house.