Okay...so sue me. That is more than a week. But if you have read any of my postings so far-then you'll know that I'm nothing if not unconventional. I enjoy a play on words...or to just simply play with words. And to make deliberate mis-takes!
The time frame listed above was far and away one of the most roller coaster-like 10 day periods of my recent life. Ups, downs, undecideds...and a whole lot 'o stuff in between. Read on for the chronology...
So I got home from a week on the road at about 1:15am Friday night/Saturday morning. The week that preceded was a bit crazy and it finally came to an end by walking in to my daughter's room when I got home and awakened her as I promised I would to let her know that I was home. There are no words that can describe the look of joy on her face when her grogginess cleared and she realized it was her daddy! That feeling was so amazing that I had myself a little moment before going to bed. Yes...I have my 'sally' moments.
So the rest of the weekend was fun too as the weather was nice so I took the kids for bike rides and to the park and got to spend some good, quality time with them. We even watched football together as my New York Football Giants took out the 49ers and clinched a berth in the Super Bowl. This was clearly among the 'ups'. But of course-every action has an equal and opposite reaction. My two older kids start not feeling well, and develop fevers. So I stay home Monday with them and take them to the pediatrician. Well...whatever they had apparently had run its' course and they were fine. So I take them to school and head into work to salvage a few hours of time off. Tuesday represented the first time in 5.5 years that I used sick time on myself. Had a doctor's appointment of my own. First one in a LONG time. But all is good. No worries.
During all of this, my youngest is really congested, and a bit cranky. But you might be too if you had bone breaking through your gums in 4 different places. But that notwithstanding, we muddled through the next 36 hours. So fast forward to Thursday. My youngest is not doing great and his school/day care calls and states that he has a fever and we'll need to come pick him up. Which of course means that we'll need to make plans now to be home Friday too. So figuring that it could be more than just a hard-core cold, I go to the pediatrician's office (again). They say that it seems that whatever he has is likely viral and not bacterial and would just have to run its' course. HOWEVER...they want us to go to the hospital and have him checked out anyway. He has a rash that looks a little concerning. Petechia they called it. I had only ever heard that term on ER or House. What it meant though, I had no idea.
They told us that it could mean a blood infection so to be safe we should go get it checked out. There was this odd look of concern on their faces. At the time I couldn't tell if it was really concern or if they were just hurrying since we were the last appointment of the day and they were ready to go home. They told us over and over again that we 'just want to be sure' but they were a bit cryptic as to what we needed to 'just be sure' about. Soooooo, off to the hospital we go. A task made more challenging since I had my middle guy (3) in tow and did I mention that my cell phone decided to make a career change to become a paperweight earlier in the day? Yea, so keeping my wife informed was a bit tricky. The office let me use their phone to call the wife and told her to meet me at the hospital with our daughter. But along the way I felt that it was silly for us ALL to be at the hospital. So I pulled out my credit card, used the OnStar to buy some minutes to use the car's calling feature and called my better half and suggested that she just head home. Get your work done, have our daughter get her homework done...relax and I'll be home soon. Little did I know what I was in for!
Remember, at this point I still have no idea of the potential magnitude of what might be...I figured: "Eh...we'll get a couple of tests done and we'll be out of here...". NOT! We got to the ER and checked in around 6:00pm. After a battery of tests, a chest x-ray, a LOT of waiting and very little info or explanations...about 6 hours later I finally come to understand that there is possible concern over blood cell counts and leukemia and pneumonia are among the two prime suspects in this mess. HOLD UP...I'm sorry...did you just try to slip it in there that my 11 month old might have cancer? Are you kidding? I mean, this is a joke right? Hardly any info all night and out of the blue you tell me that the hematologist is looking into cell counts out of concerns of possible cancer? Does the commissary serve booze? Cuz i think that I need a beverage.
Meanwhile...my wife is sitting at home not knowing ANYTHING other than what she finds on Google related to petechia. Which by the way...if you are already concerned...what you will find online is less than comforting to say the least. I managed to get my hands on one of the hospital computers and logged into my email and shot the boss a message to update her. Finally in the midst of my looking very suspicious on their computer when the doctor walks in...I finally hear that most signs point to viral and not bacterial...so we appear to be okay. We are still not fully in the clear as they want to run one more blood test just to make sure. Apparently one of the tests they ran is easily fallible, so they wanted to check again to see if the results that they got the first time (the ones that put us on alert in the first place!) were inaccurate. Comforting.
So to make a short story long, after 2 hours longer than they said that we'd have to wait for the results, we are told that we are safe and that all that worrying was for naught. We're going home and going to be discharged. Catastrophe averted...my little boy is okay. We're all going home. Thank God.
One point that I mentioned above, but didn't do a very good job of emphasizing is that my middle one, 3 years old has got to get 'Big Brother of the Year' award for his behavior. That little man hung in there all night...with no toys, no dinner, no nothing. We had no idea when the day started that we'd be gone until 5:00am. That little man hung in there awake by his brother's side until 2:15am! i was nodding off and he was still going. Maybe I should have had some apple juice too.
And as if that wasn't all enough...did I mention that all week we've been waiting on another piece of news? Oh yeah, we found out at the start of the week that my wife's company was going to be laying off a whole bunch of people this week, and as it would turn out...that all finally started to happen on what day? THURSDAY! Fortunately we made it through that one unscathed as well. But we just had a months' worth of worry in about 24 hours.
So we move along to Friday...a new day. My wife was home with the baby today, since he had a fever he wasn't going to be able to go to school right away. This day also brought with it a simple follow up appointment with the hematologist. no problem. More 'just in case' though at this point we figured that this really meant 'just in case' and there would be no more surprises. WRONG! My wife contacts me to let me know that they sent her to the oncology hematologist specialist? What? This again? I thought we were clear? Well, it would seem not so much-not yet anyway.
So after another finger prick and some actual explanations (far more expeditiously and clear than that which we got from the hospital the night before) it was determined...again, that my little guy did not have cancer. Effing hell...CHECK PLEASE-stick a fork in me, I'm done.
So really the other stuff that admittedly I had planned to include when I kicked off this writing seems really meaningless after all of that. Suffice to say that the weekend was a pretty normal weekend, and we took a few steps back to take stock of how lucky we really are. You know, I'm the first guy to complain about things that honestly-in the grand scheme of things are at the very best: petty and at worst: completely insignificant. But all in all there are truly only a few things that REALLY matter in this world and I encourage you all to make sure that you pay those things their due attention and try to let the other stuff go. There is no point in using up stress on stupid stuff when you will have plenty of things that you'll need that stress for later.
Go home. Hug your kids, spouse, etc. Look around you and be thankful for what you have and not spiteful for what you don't. Take a breath.
As always...thanks for taking the time.
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