I'm, Apparently, Full of Eggs

Remind me to never blog the words "nothing much going on here"

Today after Show Low Days, I put Benny down for a nap and the kids went running around like uncaged monkeys. Then Ben woke up and we somehow were all hanging out in my bedroom while Bob played a video game.

Dylan was messing around on my work out machine and Benny was crawling toward him and then BLAM! Dylan knocked Ben right in the forehead with the dang Gazelle pedal.
AH CRAPSHIT!

Immediately Ben wailed. I freaked out and grabbed him up. A lump began to form. A big lump.

Dammit!!!

I swooped Ben (screaming) into the kitchen and got an ice pack for his head. He wouldn't let me hold it on there. The lump grew and darkened.

I informed Bob that we would PROBABLY be adjourning to the emergency room. Then we did.

Despite having a child with a head injury I was not immediately whisked into the sacred ER.
After he PUKED on me, I told the bitch ho behind the counter and she said "No worries!" and I said "Bitch please!" No.
I really said...
"Actually he got hit in the head, so I'm quite worried that he just puked on me."

Still, no action from the nurses.

Finally they call us back and we don't even get a room, we get a glorified hallway aka the suture "room" which is partitioned into two "rooms" by "curtains". No, they were real curtains.

On one side is a gal on a bed getting her leg stitched up after a quite nasty fall. Tetanus shot required. Patient privacy is a JOKE!
On the other side is Ben's exam area. There is no bed. There is however, a La-Z-Boy chair.
What???!?

Because there is no bed, I have to hold Ben the whole time. He is angry, hurt and squiggly. THIS part of the day really freaking sucks. Seriously, I've been home for two hours and my arms are STILL sore.

OK, anyway. 100 hours later the PA comes to examine him, by then he's puked again. So it's OFF to a CT scan for us! Yay!

Other than the puking and the total hatred of being at the hospital (which in my opinion is normal behavior) he's acting fine, so I'm not super concerned at this point.
We get to CT and it's just like on House. And I said that. And the CT tech said, "oh baby, tell your mom she's funny." And I wasn't sure if she meant it or if she was being sarcastic. I went with half of each.

Then despite having trained and able bodied people there, the CT tech tried to make ME hold Ben onto the CT scan table thingy...that was an epic fail. He squiggled too much and I love him too much to restrain him.

So that girl who halfheartedly said I was funny got Punk'd and SHE got to wrestle my baby and listen to him holler in her face. Who's funny now?

Then we went back to the room hallway and La-Z-Boy to await the results. About an hour later, and 4000 squiggles and screams, the CT results were in!

It happens so much faster on House.
Anyway, in the hour I waited, I kept hearing part of the M*A*S*H theme song (trivia: It's actually called "Suicide is Painless" which adds to the ultimate irony of this story) being played in the ER.
When a nurse type person finally came into our hallway I asked her about it and she said that the trauma system was set to play the M*A*S*H theme song as an alert tone to let the ER staff know that a patient would be arriving by ambulance or helicopter. Pretty fricking dark no?

Ben's CT scan was clear, no sign of brain trauma or bleed, which I expected given his demeanor, which was normal. As we awaited our discharge paperwork, I heard the M*A*S*H theme song three times. One sick baby, two assaults (one on the Rez).

Shortly thereafter, we were discharged. While I loaded Ben into the car, I saw the helicopter coming from the direction of the reservation. Mr. Assault Victim. As we turned out of the ER parking lot and onto the main road, there was an ambulance. Two minutes later, the other ambulance. Wow. Those ER people were about to get VERY busy.

Since Benny was fine and I was starving, I hit the KFC for a grilled chicken meal. So I guess I went to KGC.

When I got home, I was immediately descended on, like crows to a fresh squirrel carcass in the hot summer sun.

"You're not getting any of MY dinner! You guys ate pizza!" I said.

Dylan eyed my tray like the Terminator.

Chicken. Rejected.
Mashed potatoes. No match.
Cole slaw. Negative.
Biscuit....analyzing....analyzing.....Approved!

"I'll just have aaaaaaaa biscuit!" he said with such glee that I just HAD to split the biscuit with him. What a sucker I am!

Then Elizabeth pulled the same move.

Potatoes. Ew!
Cole slaw. Gross!!
Biscuit. Missing!
Chicken wing....analyzing....analyzing....APPROVED!!

But she didn't speak. She just puppy-dog-eyed my chicken wing until I gave up and let her have it.
Then she wanted my spork! My SPORK!

I gave it to her.

"Mmmmm. Smork!" she said.

My meal plundered and consumed (Elizabeth saved her sMork). I adjourned to the loo, accompanied by Mr. Biscuit Thief.
Since he's potty training, he went first. A trickle at best, but a start!
He examined his work, and was proud.
Then I had to use the loo. I peed.
He was astonished at the loud loud noise!
"My pee was very quiet!" he said.

Then he examined MY work...

"Whoa mom! You're full of eggs!" and he flushed it away. I laughed so hard, I almost peed my pants, but then I remembered, I had just peed and as Dylan says I was "all out of pee."

So yeah, remind me to never say "there's nothing much going on here" ever again.

The End.

I can't stands no more!

Saturday night was fun.
I had some lovely pain and pressure, with a side of Braxton-Hicks.
When it wouldn't get better from laying down and drinking water, I went to the hospital's OB department to get checked out.
After a couple of hours hooked up to monitors in a room the size of my closet, they set me free after a shot of Toradol to relax me muss-kells and told me to take it easy.

Good advice.
However.
Have you met The Destructo Twins?



And their father, the leader of the Darkness Squad?
Their sole mission is to bring down chaos and mayhem upon my head.
In their arsenal of No-Good Tools they have such dastardly methods as Leave Garbage on Floor Everywhere, Eat Chips for Breakfast, Remove Every Book and Toy from Shelf Then Leave Room in Chaos Forevermore! Bwah ha ha!
Not to mention MY personal favorites, Dirty Dishes are Best Stashed Under My Bed and I Don't Even Remember When I Took One Bite of That Banana and Left it Under the Couch to Die.
Their father is also a master of All Bathroom Reading Materials are Best Stored in a Pile on the Floor and Why Shouldn't These Dirty Socks Mingle With the Clean Ones?

Gah!

No no. Relaxing is to invite the Devil himself in to play.
We can not do "relaxing"
Instead, I had four separate nervous breakdowns over the course of two days. Yay!
Efficiency!
I was indeed so crazed with insanity and overwhelmed with craposity that my mom was seriously considering coming out to my house just for the weekend to fold laundry and make me take a nap. No lie.
T'would be hard to do both though, since all the laundry is piled on my bed. But I digress...

After my fourth nervous breakdown last night, I washed a whole sink load of dishes and felt better and accomplished.
Of course, the Darkness Squad quickly assembled a dizzying array of plates, bowls, spoons and cups all in varying levels of filth to replace the dwindling pile I was working through. Love you guys!

It's really no surprise then that at midnight I woke up with stabbing, aching, ripping me in two pains in my lower back and belly.
I tried to go back to sleep, but HA! Pain would not yield to Exhaustion. Pain wins!
At 3:30 am I drove myself to the hospital, again, after three hours of pacing the floor, hoping for the pains to go away. False labor pains go AWAY when you walk around. The BOOKS say so.
Well, Pain does not yield to Books. Pain wins!
I got hooked up to some monitors. Told to drink a huge jug of water and left to writhe. Oh agony!
At least I got to play a game. It was called "Guess When You're Having a Contraction!"
I even got a little buzzer to push every time I thought I was having a contraction. I pushed the button seven times in 45 minutes. Remarkable!
My accuracy was not great, however, since I only had THREE contractions during that time. Boo.
My lovely parting gift...well, first, I didn't get to "part" AND I got 2 lovely liters of intravenous fluids AND a shot of terbutaline to kill the contractions.
It's not a trip to Hawaii, but it'll do.
I also got a fantastic invasive pelvic exam. Whoo ha, hoo ha! Cervix is remaining and I quote the nurse "high, thick and closed" kind of like Snoop Dogg's eyes. Boo yah!

I also apparently have a wonderful consolation prize of bladder infection which they attempted to blast away with some equally wonderful IV antibiotics. Bladder infection??!?! Who gets those!? I thought only swamp rats and homeless people and people who don't change out of their bathing suits fast enough after a swim. Eh, what do I know!

At around 8:30 am they discharged me and I came home on about 3 hours sleep to watch the children (tear apart the house) all day.
Yay!
It's not fair really. The other moms at the OB department get to take home a cute powdery baby after all that grief. All I got was a paper admonishing me to drink more fluids.
Bah.

I'm TIRED.
I swear, if Dylan tries to jump out the window today, I might just let him.

ENT Visit, UPDATE!

This morning was Elizabeth's consult with the specialist. She was psyched to meet yet ANOTHER new doctor! She's a crazy one.
Bob stayed home with Dylan, THANK GOD! One less thing to worry about.

OK, the visit...
The whole exam took about 2 minutes because as soon as he looked into her throat he said, "Oh yeah, those are very big."
In fact, the ENT said that when Elizabeth sticks out her tongue, the tonsils come together so much that they virtually occlude her throat entirely.
So it's a surgery for us.

They are going to set up the time at the hospital (it will be soon) and let us know when to show up.
It's still 50/50 whether she'll have to stay overnight or not. Either way is fine with me.
He said her symptoms and her large tonsils are "classic" sleep apnea.
In the meantime, her breathing at night is terrible. She snorts and snarfles. She wakes up in the middle of the night. This TOTALLY explains all her bad dreams!
Hopefully all that will be over once the surgery is done. At least, that's the idea.

And, just for contrast, I peeped Dylan's tonsils the other day...
Huge.
This may be a family trait! Sigh.

I'm illin'

Disclaimer: I'm fine, baby boy inside is fine. Everyone is fine.

I woke up yesterday with terrible stomach pains. The pain woke me up.
After three hours of that...and other unmentionable sickness...I was still unable to eat anything or drink anything.
I called my OB's office and they told me to go to the hospital's OB department for monitoring.
Bob was at work by then, so I had to call him home to watch the children.
Then I had to get dressed, go start the car (6 inches of snow all over it!) and find shoes. That was the hardest part. Finding a pair of shoes. Go figure.
When Bob got home he cleared all the snow off of my car and drove it out into the road (I am a horrible snow driver and got the car stuck in the driveway on a patch of slush).
Then I went to the hospital's OB department where they strapped me up to a monitor and tried very hard to find a vein for an IV.
Three nurses and four sticks later, I had an IV line. They took blood for tests and gave me 2 liters of IV fluids. I fell asleep on and off. I was exhausted.
My body was still doing the work of making another person, but without any fuel.
I lost three pounds yesterday. No lie. I weighed myself this morning.
Eventually I got to the point of starving and ice chips were not cutting it. They brought me soup and crackers. The soup made me want to puke. The crackers were bearable. So I ate four packets of saltine crackers yesterday. Total caloric intake: MAYBE 100 calories.
After that I got IV anti-nausea meds and the warning that I'd have to stay overnight if I didn't get better. I responded by falling asleep again.
I did start to feel less up-chuckish, and downed three 8oz cans of Shasta Ginger Ale, another 250 calories or so.
The baby monitor was showing no contractions and the baby's heartbeat was strong and fine. In fact, the kid was swimming around in there so much that it took the gal at least 15 minutes to find him, get him to hold still and get the heartbeat reading. All we could hear was swooshing and that was him flipping and diving and swirling around and doing whatever else babies do in there.
After seven hours of hospital hospitality they let me go home. I got home and immediately drank water. I am now freaked out of dehydrating again!
Then after two more ginger ales at home, I ate one delicious vanilla pudding cup.
Then my guts churned and I decided to stick with liquids like they told me to.
This morning my stomach is still tied in knots and every sip of water is making me gurgle and grumble.
I'm going to attempt soup later on today. I'm scared.
At least I'm home!