This has been a trying week.
Fresh off my wonderful dance with Beloved last weekend, I picked myself up, and jumped back into my weekly routine. Getting ready for work, dropping the kid at preschool, going to work (begrudgingly). Luckily we had a pupil-free day on Monday & I only had to half-way pay attention to what was going on.
Fast forward to the end of the day of meetings.
Someone comes to the library where all the teachers were meeting & tells me I have an emergency. I’m caught off guard. Me? Emergency? I never have those. But she said my son’s school called and he was running a fever.
I dash out to pick up my munchkin and when I get to his school he’s sitting in the office with the saddest little look on his face that you’ve ever seen. He didn’t want to walk. I had to carry him—all 44lbs.—to the car. When I picked him up, I noticed he was burning up so I took him home and gave him some children’s Tylenol.
Then the crying. And crying and crying.
My munchkin clutched at his stomach and I was alarmed. I’ve never seen him cry and hold his stomach like so. He didn’t want to be touched because it hurt, yet wanted his mommy to comfort him. I immediately called the doctor and got an emergency appointment.
Sometimes Doctors aren’t your friends.
I still feel some kinda way about this doctor. His previous pediatrician, whom I LOVED, stopped practicing medicine, so we’re stuck with this guy. He can be a little rough, and his bedside manner isn’t as nice, but he works.
This doctor saw my son, said it was probably just a virus and sent us home. That’s it. This was Monday.
Tuesday, the fever persisted. It got higher. Son still said his stomach hurt. I call the doctor to ask what number is too high for a fever, he says “I’m not worried about fevers. The numbers don’t matter.” This totally went against everything I’ve ever thought about fevers. But he’s the doctor right? He closed our call by saying, “Keep an eye on him. If he starts vomiting, bring him back.”
There was no vomiting so I kept him home, but vowed to go to the ER if the fever hit 104 (it was thisclose), damn what he said.
Come Wednesday it seemed like whatever-it-was was passing. Son’s temperature was below 100 for the first time all week. He still wasn’t eating so I took him to get a smoothie and some new shoes (he picked out ones with lights. Good Lord.). When we got home, he fell asleep and I was thankful he seemed to be feeling better.
While he slept, I couldn’t help but touch his head, just to make sure his fever was still gone. It wasn’t. It came back with a vengeance. My baby started shivering, his teeth chattered and I got scared. Are these convulsions? I call the doc and they squeezed me in. This time I vowed he would tell me SOMETHING.
This time I told the doctor my baby was STILL talking about his stomach, still had the temperature, was convulsing, and was now coughing. I was worried about whatever-it-is triggering his asthma. So the doc decided to run tests. After a chest X-ray they found out my son had pneumonia. Pneumonia!
Had I just listened to the doctor, and just plied my son with Tylenol, he would have probably ended up in the hospital.
This ordeal further confirmed that listening to myself is important. Plenty of times I’ve tuned out the voice and have paid for it. I’ve wasted time, money, been robbed (that’s another story). This time I was determined that my son wouldn’t pay just because I doubted my intuition. I wasn’t going to be convinced my gut was wrong simply because a doctor, someone with more authority, told me so. Sometimes you have to stick to what you feel to be true and be an advocate for your intuition (and your child), because no one knows like you know.
The next time your gut tells you to go left, take the detour and see if you aren’t better for it.
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When was the last time you listened to your gut?
Have you ignored your intuition & have it blow up on you?
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