His first trip was when he was a baby and became dehydrated from that horrid rhotovirus thing that almost killed us all. We ended up in the Lubbock ER on Thanksgiving Day in 2003. The second trip was to the Waco ER on this past Friday night. I have decided I must be allergic to Waco,Texas because the last time we were in Waco back at Christmas I was in the ER. Another story, another time... Back to Jack's drama. I put him in bed around 10 pm at my in laws and I noticed this really strange sore on his arm that hadn't been there when I gave him a bath that morning. You know how you know every bump, scratch, and bite on your child. So something that looks like the world's scariest pimple would catch your attention on the inside, delicate skin of your child's arm. Well, I had just had a conversation with someone about staph infection going around kiddos and adults and all the MRSA scary stuff floating around. It had the classic infection signs of hot, red, and streaking. He screamed when I tried to touch or look at it. I immediately told Jeremy and off we were to the ER. Because we really like to spend hours around hundreds of really ill people in the middle of the night. Seriously folks, if something looks strange, go to the ER or clinic. What can it hurt if it turns out to be nothing? After I made a small scene, we were ushered back after thirty minutes. I know what you are thinking. Dina, a scene, NO??? You know you would do the same. I waived my insurance card around in the air and proclaimed my child as the most important matter than needed to be addressed. Apparently staph is kind of a big deal and security had enough crazies to deal with besides me. So, the doctor takes one look at his arm and says, yep that is staph and we need to deal with it now. Some of you may know I was premed in college for three long tortuous years (couldn't get that darn organic chemistry figured out), so I knew a little about what was going to happen. Jack was convinced they were only going to rub medicine on it and we would be on our way. Poor kid thinks Neosporin solves everything. Kind of like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, "Spray some Windex on it!" Anyway, I knew they were going to have to lance it, dig around, and drain it. I tried to prepare him for something a little more than medicine rubbing. I certainly wasn't going to lie to him and let him be surprised by the pain. Then he would have been mad at me for telling him it wouldn't hurt, when I knew it was going to hurt like heck. He was shaking and shivering and kept saying it was going to hurt. My response was yes, it probably will, but so what... It sounds harsh, but follow me here. He had to think for a while on the "so what". I reminded him that he gets hurt all of the time and survives. This would hurt but he would survive and move on. I reminded him how many times he had fallen out of a tree or off his bike or stung by bees. I reminded him that all those times hurt but he survived. So the doctor gets this huge needle, sticks it right in the middle of the sore on his arm. The white meat is what Jeremy and I call that delicate skin on the inside of your arm. She then pumps his arm full of lidocaine or whatever and then drains all the infection out. She then proceeds to cut open his arm and then bury a pair of really long tweezers down into it. It was so much worse than it sounds. Jeremy was holding Jackson down at the doctor's orders and I was on the surgery side holding his hand and trying to talk him down. As you can imagine he was screaming at her to stop "slicing him open." His words, not mine. When she was finished , he got really grouchy with her and told her, "I thought I wasn't supposed to feel anything from the shot." Then he tells her, "Oh, I felt it!" It was actually pretty hilarious. So it hurt like heck and he survived. For good measure, the nurse gave me a tetanus shot because I was stupid enough to say I hadn't had one in the last five years. It hurt, I bruised and bled, and it made Jack feel a little better. On the way out, he asked the doctor to show him a scalpel. He asked her if it was as big as a machete. Don't all little boys know what a machete is? When she showed him a clean one, the size of an exacto knife, from the supply closet, he almost passed out. After getting prescriptions , we were finally home after 2 am. It was horrible. Consequently we are all on high powered antibiotics as a precaution. So, moral to the story, if you see something strange on your child, even if it is small at the time... Have it checked. The Doctor said infections like that grow quickly and it would have been very bad to wait until the morning to bring him in. Thank the Lord he is fine now. Jeremy took him to his regular Doctor (Belinda's dad) and he is good to go. It healed up nicely after a weekend of constant hot compresses and bandage changing. Other moral to the story (medical personnel back me up): Don't lie to your kids and say something won't hurt. It will and they will resent you for not being truthful. Of course this applies to kids old enough to know the difference. Please don't scare the crud out of the real little ones.
