Pediatric Anal Probe

Everyone at our house has been sick all freaking winter for the last week and a half. Eli brought home the cold (which Eric swears is allergies, but I say cold). Then Eric came down with Eli’s “allergies.” Then me. Then Georgia. By yesterday, everything had settled in my chest, so I decided to make a doctor’s appointment before I ended up with pneumonia. Georgia seemed on the upswing. Until yesterday morning.

When Georgia woke up yesterday, she seemed fine. By the time we dropped Eli off at preschool, she was fussing. By the time we got to the grocery store, she was starting to cry. It got worse throughout the grocery store. By the time we got home, she was sobbing, with occasional screaming. This had now gone on for a total of three hours, so I called the doctor. They told me to bring her in immediately.

As upset as Georgia was, she was even more pissed when she realized I was taking her to the doctor. They weren’t exactly pleased as punch to have a child in their office screaming non-stop. I think she was scaring the other children.

When the doctor came in to examine her, I had to hold her arms down while he just listened to her with his stethoscope because she was trying to shove him away screaming, “NOOOO!!!” When he tried to look in her ears, she was having none of it. The doc had to bring a nurse in so she and I could hold Georgia down on the table so he could look in her ears.

Next up, they took her blood. Oh, dude. Dude. You would have thought Michael Myers was coming at her with a giant butcher knife the way she was screaming. For those of you who don’t have small children, they take their blood by pricking their finger and squeezing it out. Dude.

At least after that, I thought the worst of it was over. However, I was a little concerned because after they looked her over (fine), checked her ears (fine) and checked her white blood cell count (normal), they couldn’t figure out what the heck was wrong with her. I then had to sit through the quiz, with questions like, “Could she have gotten into anything? Any medications?” Yes, they were now trying to figure out if I had poisoned my child. I assured them that I was certain that was NOT the case.

They finally decided to give her some Tylenol to see if that would help her. Unfortunately, Georgia won’t take medicine. She spits it out, and if you manage to get it down her throat, she throws up. They didn’t believe me. Until they tried to shove the dropper in her mouth. The idiots.

That left only one option. I’ll bet many of you didn’t know that you could get acetamenaphin (Tylenol) in a suppository. Oh yeah! If I thought taking her blood was bad, giving her a suppository was about a bazillion times worse. The nurse, who had just gotten kicked by my daughter for sticking her with a needle, came back in with a helper. Yes, it took me and two nurses to hold this child down so one of them could shove a suppository up there. The nurses just gave me comments like, “Wow! She sure is strong for a 2-year-old.

Now, here’s the good part. By the time we had checked out and got to the car, the Tylenol had kicked in. Georgia had stopped screaming and fell asleep on the way home. By the time Eric got home, she seemed to be her normal self. Since he didn’t see any of this ordeal, he didn’t quite seem to comprehend the severity of the situation. He just heard, “but she’s fine now.” Dude, that hardly seems fair.

After that, I went to my own doctor’s appointment. Where they commented on my bloodshot eyes and the fact that I looked tired. I tried not to roll my eyes. Or show them my new bruises from my kicking daughter. *sigh* I’m trying to look on the bright side. Even though I had to wait an hour to see my doctor, at least I got some quiet time. Oh, and by the way, I have bronchitis. I think I’m going to officially classify yesterday as a bad day.