Bedside manner

I — SOMEHOW!  It’s shocking, I know– never got to posting about it here, but Ash manifested a nasty ear infection on Monday night.  Starting around 9, 10pm (so after 2-3 hours of sleep) he’d started sounding like he wasn’t exactly sleeping well, but the noises coming through the monitor weren’t so obvious that we judged it beneficial to go into Ash’s room to check on things.  At 2am that changed….and the problem not only became obvious, but resulted in my spending the next three hours trying everything I could to do what was needed without having to wake Steffan up to help me out.  He had gone to bed while I stayed up to monitor Ash more closely, because he was going to get a max of 5 hours of sleep before his morning-shift-following-a-night-shift….so I reaaaaalllly didn’t want to have to add to his exhaustion while driving and working and dodging juvenile violence, the next day.  When 5am rolled around I still hadn’t managed to get a complete dose of fever-reducer into Ash, though, so it was time to re-balance the judged risks.  Ash had a high fever — I wasn’t even sure how high, because it only got to 101+°F before I couldn’t keep the thermometer in place any more.  (Hmmmm….maybe I can put one of those ear thermometers on his birthday list…!!)  I’d gotten him from the puddle — Of sweat?  Urine?  I couldn’t even tell — he was writhing in, in bed, and gotten him to the bathroom, where he kept desperately trying to push out what according to him was meant to be pee, but which wasn’t really coming.  He was twiching and trembling and shaking and whimpering and moaning, shivering and sweating, obviously utterly exhausted and miserable, and claiming a headache and a tummy ache.  Most of the time he couldn’t hold himself upright, just wanted to collapse in a hug, even as he sat on the toilet.  In any event, the aforementioned three hours of effort and tricks later, nothing had improved.  After I finally gave up and got Steffan’s help, we managed to force a complete dose of fever reducer into him, but then, of course, he immediately threw it back up.  In fact, that was pretty much the way things went until 11:20, when I’d managed to get him a slot at the doctor’s office.  After a shot of antibiotics in one side of his bum (which burns and aches for the rest of the day, in a scrawny little bum like his) and one shot of anti-nausea medicine in the other side, plus a few rounds of staggered doubling-up of acetomenophen and ibuprofin to bring down the 102+°F fever and the pain levels, plus many, many hours of lying whimpering on Mommy, with an ice pack on his butt and assorted movies attempting to distract him whenever it looked like there were no chances of him dozing off fitfully for even a few minutes, plus all the sips of Pedialyte that I could get into him………………….he finally slept lightly for about 3 hours, starting around 9pm on Tuesday night.  I made it over 40 hours on 10 minutes of rough sleep, but eventually got about 2 of Ash’s three, myself.

“Good times,” as they say, but we’ve had worse.

Ash had to return to the doctor’s office the next morning for another shot of antibiotics, and he still needed both kinds of fever/pain medicine working in tandem, to control his fever.  We kept him home from school all day, just trying to get him to rest whenever possible and as much as possible (this involved, once again, a lot of time lying draped over or snuggled on Mommy, with an ice pack on his butt), monitor how he was doing, keep medicating him and keep trying to re-hydrate him.  As he showed signs of no longer being dehydrated, we mixed the strawberry Pedialyte into his milk the same way we normally mix in the berry-based flavors of generic V8Fusions, so he’d get some more calories into him.  He still had no appetite, and he’d already lost a few pounds….that doesn’t take long, with him.  The day was basically devoted to whatever he needed to feel as good as he could get as far as feeling.  That evening was supposed to be the first performance of his 1st grade show — though that is another post to write, which I’ve barely touched upon yet — and we were really, really, reaaaaaallllllly hoping he’d feel well enough to be in it.  Contagion wasn’t an issue, since his fever, etc., came from an ear infection….so it really all came down to how he felt.  He SO wanted to be in that show, and after everything….well, it would’ve really torn him apart if he had to miss it.

Skipping over the show-related stuff because that is, as noted, really another post… Ash had to have a third (and, hopefully, final) shot of antibiotics this evening.  We’re pretending it still counts at Thursday evening right now, ok?  In any case, the following dialogue took place while on the way home from the doctor’s office…

Ash: “Mommy, it’s time to use the pretend phone.  I need to call the doctor and the nurse.”

Me: “Ok…” <makes the traditional phone shape with my hand>

Ash: “No the other kind of phone, I think.”

Me: <mimes flipping open my cell phone and holding it to my head>

Ash: <does more or less the same, then pretends to push buttons>

Me:  “Brrring brrrring briiiiing!  Hello?  This is the doctor’s office.  Who is speaking?”

Ash:  “It’s me.  Um….it’s me, Ash Fieri.  You gave me a shot of medicine in my butt even though I told you to stop, because you needed to make sure I got better.  Now I need to tell you something.”

Me: “What would you like to tell me, Ash?”

Ash: “YOU COULD HAVE SAID YOU WERE SORRY.”

THEY are the ones that did it, Mom!