Nothing is scarier as a mom than your children’s health and well-being being in jeopardy. When your child is sick, it consumes you. It takes the normal “mom crazy” and raises it to a new level. When my daughter was admitted to the hospital at three months old with a very high fever, I was insane. Shirley Maclaine’s character in Terms of Endearment had nothing on new mom Katie Wollenberg. I yelled at the admitting staff and a nurse. After waiting hours with a baby who was terribly hot and had the chills, I said to my husband, “This hospital is named ‘Doctor’s Hospital,” you’d think they would employ DOCTORS!'” He is really a saint. This was all after the people at Urgent Care told me that she could have a urinary tract infection or meningitis. MENINGITIS? Really? You need to confirm that with a test before you throw that on a first time mom only three months into the game who is still raging with hormones. To read more about that ridiculous display of mom crazy you can visit my blog here.
All the Unknowns
The problem is that when our children are born, they don’t come with a medical degree for Mommy. This means that we never actually know if they are sick, faking it, if it’s a virus or nothing at all. Then the logistics. Can they get us in today? Should I take off work? Can I send them with Grandma? Can it wait until after school? Plus, with the cost of medical care these days, we don’t want to run in and order every test under the sun if it is simply the sniffles.
Last week, my daughter was complaining that her ear hurt, but she didn’t have a fever. Because she didn’t have a fever, I decided to wait it out another day. Well, she woke up in the middle of the night and then complained about it a bit the next morning. I made an appointment. Although she had no fever, I didn’t want to end up at Urgent Care on our very busy Saturday and I didn’t want her pain to get worse. I took her in. As we are sitting there and the doctor is examining her I am thinking, ugh maybe it’s not an ear infection, maybe it’s viral. Maybe I wasted our time, the doctor’s time and the copay. About 30 seconds later she says, “Oh yeah, that’s infected.” Instead of being sad that my daughter has an ear infection, I’m relieved. I’m relieved that I wasn’t wrong. I’m relieved that we can get some medicine for her and she will be feeling better by Christmas. I am relieved that my mom gut was right.
Grace for Moms
I don’t know when you should take your kid to the doctor. I usually air on the side of caution. However, this mom job is hard and thank goodness we have understanding, nurse, nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants and doctors. They listen to us crazy moms and handle us with child gloves when we are most vulnerable. Momming is hard, especially when it comes to the health of our children. Hang in there ladies and may your children’s immune systems be ever in your favor.
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