Pain

Oh, have we struggled the last few days. There has been no working on my syllabus. No cleaning the garage. No spinning. And no sleeping. NO SLEEPING. Ever since the kids started kindergarten, I have been doing a lot of reminiscing about their babyhood, and the NO SLEEPING thing brought me right back to the nauseating desperation that takes over when one goes several days without rest.

It all started on Tuesday, when Green came home from school complaining about his ear. Whenever Green gets a cold, his ears clog up. I know this. But somehow, I sensed something was different. And in the middle of the night, the screaming began. This was wild, back-arching wailing. We tried Tylenol and Sudafed and the Hokey Pokey. Nothing helped.

Clearly, the kid wasn't going to school on Wednesday. And Wednesday brought with it escalating shrieking and crying. He started to plead with me, "Mama, I need your help." So we picked up Blue from school at 3 and went to visit our friendly pediatrician.

I'll admit it. I hate going to the pediatrician. The place is too hot, the rooms are too small, and I feel just a bit resentful that we have almost single-handedly put this doctor's kids through college. For years, we have shown up with a series of horrible symptoms and get sent home with the news that "it's just a virus." I call this the BUMMER FOR YOU (BFY) diagnosis, because when things get bad enough for me to drag the gaggle of us to the doctor's, I would like to receive a PLAN OF ACTION in return. But no, it's usually "drink liquids and get some rest."

Now, ear pain seems to be the most likely affliction to generate the BFY diagnosis. And I understand this. I do. If you take too many antibiotics, they become ineffective when you really need them. But on Wednesday, I would have cut off a few of my toes if it would have meant that there was something that could help my child. Still, after looking in the kid's ears, Dr. Busy looked up and smiled. She chirped, "Lucky for you, Green, you don't have to take any yucky medicine!"

I was sweaty from the heat and shaky from the exhaustion, and I could feel myself getting a bit screechy. "Are you sure it's not infected?" I asked incredulously. "Nope," she answered. "There's just a bit of fluid in there. You just need to wait a few days."

A FEW DAYS!!!?!?!?!?! Didn't she get it? Something was wrong, definitely more-than-average wrong. Green had been screaming bloody murder for 24 hours, and he wouldn't eat ice cream. No ice cream!! But see, there's a problem. My degree in mother's intuition is worth far less than her fancy medical education. What can I do? Tell her that she should trust me, the ear really is infected even if it doesn't look like it?

So we went home, with no antibiotics. I almost asked Dr. Busy for a prescription for grape-flavored Vicodin, but I figured that Green already had his folder flagged with a note that read: "Mother is a freak." In some venues, jokes about narcotics are simply not appreciated.

Wednesday night was like a scene out of hell. Green cried and cried and cried. He slept for maybe an hour, if you pieced all his five minute dozes together. By morning, his little eyes had fallen deep into their sockets. When the doctor's office opened, I called Dr. Busy and left a shrill message. An hour later, a nurse called us back. "Hi," she said. "This is Emily from Busy Pediatrics! Dr. Busy wants you to try warm compresses on Green's ear and have him take regular doses of Ibuprofin." Wow! Thanks so much. I never would have thought of over-the-counter pain medication!

By yesterday evening, Green was pleading, "Can't you do something?" It was time for a trip to Urgent Care, which is a fancy term for a nighttime doctor's appointment at the cost of an emergency room visit. Isn't it crazy to spend hundreds of dollars to have someone look in a kid's ears? It is, truly. But guess what? I was right. Green is the proud owner of a raging infection and a shiny new collection of amoxicillin bottles.

The big thing that we learned through this process (besides the fact that I know my kid) is that Green (and presumably Blue, too) has a geographic tongue. What's that, you ask? It's basically a funny tongue that has marks on it, but what's interesting is its rarity. It affects only .06% of all Americans. So, Blue and Green are identical twins (1 in every 1,000 deliveries world wide) that are mirror image (23% of identical twins) with unlikely tongues. I love these boys, but they sure are weird.