What a Miserable Grouch

That would be what people are saying about me. Not that I am normally miserable. But once I get sick I become this hideous beast. And I've been sick all week.

Plus as it turns out I am a much more negative person than even I anticipated. I thought I had issues with aggressive driving, but I kicked that without incident. Since giving up negativity for Lent I am appauled by how easily it flows.

Anyway to the business more interesting to the audience:

This was supposed to be a big weekend. Erin and I were heading to a Dierks Bentley concert last night and then Erin was going to go down to AC for a bachelorette party tonight. So the concern for being left solo with two children for over 24 hours was far outweighed by the excitement for the DB concert. Then the spiral.

Molly was up a lot of Thursday night and had a fever for most of the day Friday. She was extremely irritable around dinner time and Erin and I decided to skip the concert because we knew it would be a rough night for Molly. Gavin stayed at Grandma and Grandpa's for his much-anticipated sleepover, but Molly came home with us. Her breathing was labored, her fever wasn't going away, and her mood was sour. We put her on two liters of oxygen and her pulse/ox was in the low 80% range. That's where she should be on room air; with oxygen she should be in the 90s - especially with that much. She ended up sleeping for maybe 20 minutes at three different points during the night. It was miserable.

So this morning I took the Bear to the pediatrician. He never even took her out of the car seat. He told me to take her to the hospital. I called Erin, who was getting ready to leave for the big bachelorette evening, to tell her we were going to RWJ. She decided it would be best if she came too, and so I picked her up on the way.

Molly was brought into the Pediatric ER (third time in the same pod) and stabilized. She was in really bad shape for a while, actually. She looked as bad as she's looked since the first time in that pod on October 18 (two weeks before heart surgery). They worked her into pretty good shape in a hurry, and aside from being really tired and uncomfortable, she was fine. We were admitted and brought to a room in the PICU at around 2 pm.

As is always the case, there were numerous tests. These typically involve gathering blood, mucous, and urine. These are all sent off to some lab to test for a variety of things and then gradually the doctors can narrow it down to something. They also did another chest x-ray. The first thing they told us was that although little had changed since her previous x-ray, it did look like she had some pneumonia in her right lung. They also said that she was presenting with some symptoms of meningitis and encouraged us to let them do a spinal tap.

Imagine if you will your humble author sprawled comfortably on the "bed" watching a movie and dozing off while Erin deals with yet another doctor or nurse or nurse practitioner coming in to look Molly over [she handles that because, well frankly, she is much better at listening and remembering and answering the questions that are actually being asked]. Half asleep/engrossed in a movie I've seen seven times I notice they're there, but I am paying little attention until I hear the words "spinal tap" and suddenly spring into action.

Last time we were there we were told they'd like to do a spinal tap because there were some symptoms of meningitis - same doctor said it, in fact - and Molly turned out to have a urinary tract infection. Erin knows I am not a fan of the spinal tap and thus was looking for me to interject. I simply asked if we might wait until some other results came back before jumping to an assumption that required a needle to be stuck in the very vehicle that enables my very petite, nearly eight month-old daughter to move the little bit she is able. The doctor pushed back a little on the time we would lose by waiting. I pushed back with a maybe we can split the difference recommendation.

In the end I lost. Ultimately I am not going to refuse medical care that may be necessary, but I am going to register my disapproval. And I did this one last time, as I was signing the consent form, just for the record. We were asked to wait outside while the "lumbar puncture" was administered - as if we were planning to stay there anyway.

By the way Erin just called me a few minutes ago to tell me the spinal tap results came back negative.

So now Erin and Molly are at the hospital while Gavin and I are home for a sleepover and some oatmeal blueberry pancakes for breakfast. He's been asking about them all week, and Erin says I told him I'd make them, but I have no idea how and I can't find the recipe. So, basically, help a brother out if you can tell me how to make them. Or why anyone would want them.