I don't know if you can see the big lump on the side of her neck, but it's about the size of Willow's fist. Late the other night she woke up crying and feverish, screaming that her neck hurt. Since I secretly read all those scare-tactic parenting magazines at the library, I immediately figured that it was meningitis and that she was going to die. I asked Willow to turn her head so that I could see if her neck was stiff, and as she turned I saw revealed that huge lump, which was not there when we put her to bed two hours previously, and I was forced to hasten the mental timeline leading to my child's death by quite a bit.Fortunately, I am great in an emergency. Seriously, I am exactly the person that you want around you in a crisis. So ten minutes later, having driven under the speed limit and obeyed all traffic signs and signals, with wallet and insurance card and cell phone and ipod loaded with PBS Kids videos and Wee Sing mp3s, we were in the emergency room.
NOT meningitis, hallelujah. Lots of waiting and morphine and CAT scans and medical staff with questionable bedside manners and staff with great bedside manners and eavesdropping on other patients (this one guy accidentally stuck himself with his babymama's syringe! And she came to the ER with him! And they brought the baby! And then they yelled at each other!) and IV drugs later, the verdict became an infected lymph node. We got loaded up with drugs and sent home, and had one nice day to goof around in the garden--
--before we decided, in consultation with an ear-nose-throat surgeon the next morning, to submit Will to outpatient surgery that same day to drain the infected lymph node and clean it out. It was NOT fun, obviously, and I didn't tell Willow that it would be, but fortunately nothing has been too scary or too painful, and Will's big unhappiness today is primarily directed at the uncomfiness of the HUGE bandage on her neck and the itchiness that she can't touch just under it.
So our big plans for the near future include lots of Mythbusters, party planning for Sydney's birthday, and maybe some coloring pages. Oh, and apples. Lots of apples.
a very sweet post, about what must have been a harrowing time.
ReplyDeletei am going to remember that you are the person to have around in an emergency, because i think that carl and i might both be NOT that person. i'm putting your number in speed dial.
i had dreams about your girls last night. they both came over to stay with us for the day. the big bandage was off, but i kept forgetting which girl had it, and so i was comforting sydney, and talking to her about how nice it must be to have that mean ol' bandage off. willow was just looking at me like i was nuts. so was sydney, for that matter. ahh, dreams.