Me, A Screaming Baby, Four Ping-Ponging Children, and A Cup of Pee

(photo from here. Cause whoever actually has a picture of urine specimen cups deserves credit)

Yesterday? It was a day.

(Just to warn you. If it wasn't obvious from the title, I'm gonna talk about pee in this post. So. Avoid if you must.)

The morning was busy coming and going and getting done and then I picked up the kids from school and drove one town over to visit the eye doctor because Sam is getting headaches at school and at home. Just as we expected, he is farsighted and needs glasses. This is all well and good because headaches caused by farsightedness are fixable and I like fixes and so we were happy and thought we could go home until I realized my baby was BLAZING hot with fever.  This was not just a hey I think my baby is getting sick fever, but an OH MY WORD CALL THE DOCTOR NOW fever. So I did. Bless them, they said come right away so we left the eye doctor and drove to the family doctor where we learned that Ivy's temperature was 104.2. Even though the office was closing in thirty minutes, suddenly we were the most important people there. We saw the PA, and then we saw the doctor, and nurses kept coming in to check Ivy's temperature again, and then again. I was worried, they were worried, even my kids were starting to get worried. ALL of them. Because all five of them were with me. 

So Ivy's ears looked good and her nose looked good and there wasn't really any visible reason for her fever to be so high. She'd been cranky all week, not eating all that well, mildly feverish off and on for a few days, but nothing significant, nothing like 104.2. It could be viral, but the doctor's gut said infection. But where? If only Ivy could tell us what hurt. Then, a flash of mother intuition fought through the haze of tired that filled my brain and blasted to the surface. Ivy was just a little younger than Lucy was the first time she had a Urinary Tract Infection. The doctor nodded his head. The symptoms, the family history, it fit. 

And so we moved forward, assuming a UTI, but knowing we needed confirmation - confirmation in the form of a urine sample. From a 16 month old baby. Ha. Ha Ha. So easy. 

So we went to the pharmacy to fill a prescription for an antibiotic. We went to Sonic and bought slushes and tator tots and then we went to the hospital parking lot and waited for the baby to pee. We went to the hospital because by this time, it was 5:45 and no other labs were open. So our instructions were to collect the sample, then drop it off at the ER. Sounded easy enough. Except, a 16 month old doesn't exactly pee on command. It's probably important to note that my much loved family doctor is one town over from my own - about thirty minutes away. So I couldn't exactly drive home, then hop right back to his office to deliver samples. So. We waited. And waited. And waited. My poor patient children had been ping-ponging around doctor's exam rooms all afternoon and they were keyed up. I let them loose in the grassy field next to the hospital parking lot and tried to get my baby to drink her weight in Sonic Lemon Berry Slush. She gave it a valiant effort (Have you ever had a Lemon Berry Slush? They are amazing.) and then finally, FINALLY, Success! I'll spare you the details of how it went down. Just know that my children were disgusted and I  earned a gold star next to my "Expert at dealing with Disgusting Bodily Fluids" Mothering Merit badge. 

Then, THEN we went into the ER. All of us. Me, a screaming baby and four more ping-ponging children. I thought we could drop off the sample and leave. That's what the doctor told us. But life is never simple is it? We had to register the pee before we could leave it at the hospital. We weren't patients. We weren't going to occupy a room. But the pee was staying. It needed to be checked in. I laughed out loud when they told me. I think the gleam in my crazy mother eye might have frightened them a little. With nothing else to do, we waited in line with all the other people that needed to be checked in. Me, a screaming baby, four ping-ponging children, and a cup of pee. Finally it was our turn. The check-in clerk wasn't all that amused when I asked if our pee could have a private room. I wasn't all that amused when he sighed with exhaustion when I told him my daughter, or her pee, had never been a patient at his hospital before. How inconvenient for him. To have to fill in twenty extra lines of information in his computer system. I was trying to be nice, but really? I didn't much care about his inconvenience at this point. Questions answered, privacy policy signed (because heaven help us if the pee's rights be violated) we were finally done. The check-in clerk handed me the pee and said, "Here. You just take this with you." 

At this point, I thought I was going home so I was very confused when he wanted me to take the pee with me. 

"What?" 

It was all I could manage to say. 

"You have to take this to the lab," he said. 

Of course I did. Because there is probably a line there too. And there was. So we waited even longer. Me,  four ping-ponging children, a screaming baby, and a cup of pee. I couldn't help but overhear the conversation going on with the woman just ahead of me in line. She was arguing with the clerk. She wanted test results for her mother's recent procedure, but she didn't have an ID. Over and over, she asked. Is my id in the system? I've been a patient here before. What if I call my husband and he tells you over the phone I am who I say I am? My friend drove me here and she lives thirty minutes away and she can't bring me back. And on, and on it went. I wanted to scream, FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, WHY DID YOU LEAVE YOUR HOUSE WITHOUT YOUR ID?!!! But I didn't. Because sometimes I forget my id, and she was probably really worried about her Mom, and just hadn't been thinking. But see, I was still standing there holding a screaming baby and a cup of pee and it was almost 7 PM and my children were making me stark raving crazy... 

And then she gave up and it was my turn and the clerk took the pee and we were done. 

We got home just after 7:30. 

The doctor called this morning and confirmed our suspicions. Ivy does have an infection, we've got her on the right antibiotic and she should feel better very, very soon. I'm glad. And I'm still tired. 

In other news, I'm working on a second book which is a good explanation for why I have not been blogging. That, and it seems like a lot of people aren't blogging much anymore. Is it dying, do you think? Evolving perhaps? I don't know. I love the opportunity that blogging created for me to record things about  my kids that I would never have written down otherwise, and I wish I would blog more for that reason, but at the same time, writing books is kinda fun. And let's face it. I'm not exactly rolling around in spare time. So. Sometimes I just gotta choose. And also my kids are older now and I am less comfortable writing about them now that they are old enough to care. And also my life isn't quite as ridiculous as it was when they were all tiny at the same time. So perhaps my need to vent is less? Maybe it's a little of all of that. What do you think? Are you blogging less? Reading less?