2009-02-10 - 8:38 a.m.

...a trip to the walk-in clinic...

I just wrote a long email to blighty, who was in recent contact with a high school friend of ours. I decided that the email update would make a nice blog update, too. So here you all are.

*****

I'm getting through the stressed out time at work. I'm slowly making it through all of the things that I need to do. It's tough because I've lost ALL extra time. The minute I come home, my day is over. I'm still adjusting to that squeeze on my work day, and realizing how undisciplined I have always been. Before Susi, I just would work any ol' time I needed to, and so my work day was pretty relaxed. Now it is clear to me that if I don't get it done between 9:30-5:30, then it isn't going to get done!

Anyway, today is a little different - I'm home with this nasty flu that I caught (surprise) from Susi. Poor girl. She's been sick with this thing for two whole weeks, and yesterday evening she woke up with ANOTHER fever, and her left cheek was all red and swollen. And of course, it was 5:30pm, so ALL doctors offices had just closed. THANK YOU VERY MANY. Sooooo - I called the newborn (ahem 0-2yrs) hotline and spoke to a nurse about the symptoms. She said that we were probably dealing with a convergence of three different things - a cold, a secondary infection, and teething. And that Susi was PROBABLY fine. But the red cheek and the fever could also mean a dreaded ear infection, and there were enough things checked on the nurse's checklist to recommend that we go in. URGH.

So....we spent 20 minutes cursing and scouring the house for Susi's Healthcare Card (found the wrong one, but at least it worked), packed her into the stroller, and walked her up the street to the night clinic (have I thanked GOD recently for a night clinic???), which of course, was PACKED full of OTHER people who suddenly got sick at 5:30pm and realized that they weren't going to make it through the night without seeing a doctor. Ho hum.

So I sat with little Susi on my lap for about 40 minutes, reading through an astounding collection of Canadian magazines (Chatelaine, Modern Vancouver Woman, Canadian Living, The Beaver...) ...and Susi just sat there on my lap happily playing with a BC cancer cure brochure, flipping the one page open and shut, and occasionally injecting a sound like "HUH! ISN"T THAT INTERESTING?" into the quiet room. She was terribly terribly cute..and getting cuter...and that's when I realized that the acetominophen had kicked in. THIS WAS NO LONGER A SICK CHILD. She looked FINE.

By this time, K had popped his head back into the clinic (he had gone shopping for needed household supplies such as herbal tea and more tissues for the mother figure), and handed me (who was now clearly feeling worse than the baby) a fresh pot of tea. So...we looked at the ten other people in the waiting room...and looked back at the chipper baby...and then BACK at the ten other pathetic looking people in the waiting room...and realized that it was gonna be a looonnng time before we would be able to see the one doctor on duty.

So we walked back up to the desk and said that we were leaving. We plopped the chatty baby on the counter as evidence that we no longer had a problem, really.

Apparently, doctors REALLY don't like it if you come in with a problem and then decide to LEAVE. So they ushered us immediately into an examination room. The doctor came in three minutes later checked her ears (no infection), and said, YEP, the baby is SICK. But there's nothing else we can do, so, BYEE. Oh, and, good luck getting through the night with a sick baby. ha ha ha. And we were on our way. SO GLAD that we didn't have to drive to an emergency room for that.

Anyway, the end result is that Susi slept through the night without a problem, while mom woke every three hours with a horrible sore throat and cough. And now, Mom is holed up under the covers looking pathetic, and Susi is playing happily in the corner with her gazillion and two books (you gave up Sheep in a Jeep, right? hysterical. Thank you. Susi doesn't quite catch the nuances yet, but her mother is thrilled to have a break from "Where is Spot?"). Oops, she's spotted mom, and she's on her way over with the Spot book...gotta go.

Thanks for sending Richie's email address, I'll get back to him when I can.

hugs and love,
Teranika