bubble boy

26Jul07

Max’s skin is the consistency of butter, at room temperature.

Babs can eat her heart out over this skin.

Everything about watching the needle slip in and out of my son’s pudgy miniscule hand made me want to scream. And I did, eventually. It took two more attempts, once in his arm, and the last in his foot before I picked up a raging terrified 15 month old from the table, scattered the four people holding him down, including my husband, and said it was over.

Three hours after admitting Max into the hospital yesterday, I found myself in a typically morose hospital room in the pediatric ward, fighting back tears and wondering how the FUCK we ended up there. The first phone call from the mister was only slightly alarming. I was in the middle of reviewing high end faucets that all looked like penises…

J is taking Max to the doctor’s office. I’m meeting them there.

Okay. It was probably nothing. I quelled my first reaction to quit the penis search and run home. Another dramatic bug bite, swollen, hot, red foot. Subsequent calls relayed a relaxed report about Max playing in the waiting room, bearing weight on his foot, proud parents declaring how tough their kid was.

An hour later, I was running downstairs to catch the train home. My head was an egg. The yolk contained all the panic that threatened to break from my jittery motions. I slowed down and took a breath. Calm washed over me as I let the oxygen back into my brain. Then it broke.

Panic, yellow gooey panic filled my head and mixed fear with sense and I was crying by the time I saw the mister on the sidewalk in front of our apartment. He told me it wasn’t life threatening. We just needed to admit Max to the hospital overnight to treat the infection from his bug bite with intravenous antibiotics.

(but why would they insist on admitting him overnight? intravenously?? I didn’t even know that was possible. what aren’t they telling us?)

The streak that was starting to creep up my tiny son’s right leg was red, not black like I pictured it when my husband explained what was happening to me over the phone. Streaming Infection sounds like it would be a dark black green that crinkles its way through your soft tissue like in the horror movies. It was up just above his ankle.

I was self-designated as the one parent who was allowed to stay overnight in the room. After the failed IV debacle with three quaking residents practicing on my son, Nurse Jeanie strode into the room and told us the alternative pencillin shot would be more painful and so we tried again. It makes a difference when the person sticking you has been around since 1985.

If you ever have to see your child get an IV, be prepared to see the needle move around like they’re trying to perform lipsuction. It’s fucked up. Jeanie asked me how I was after it was over. I told her that I was fine, and I told her the truth. You just have to know what to expect. The shaky hands and gross inexperience of the three blind mice who failed miserably to thread the IV the first go around infuriate me still as I write this. My sister, about to embark on her own medical education has told me that the system is flawed. The medical profession has to practice to become experienced, but the rehearsal is painful and sometimes deadly. I will never let them do that to Max again.

For about 15 minutes in that dark room, I got an internet signal on my laptop. With the sound of Max snoring and a dead arm from clamping Max’s body close to me to keep him from bucking off his IV and arm board, I scrolled the touch pad and keyboard with numb fingers and read a drunken entry from Half Mama which made some of the ordeal infinitely more bearable. Thank you for the laugh. I really needed it.

After we got home today, I was wound up so tightly that I couldn’t take a nap to make up for not sleeping the night before. Another thank you to One Weird Mother for sending me to Kevin Charnas…dot com. My husband and I both started immediately muttering fur burger to each other, then laughed hysterically, and finally fell asleep.

I don’t know why most bloggers maintain blogs, as platforms for bigger writing, small business, personal diaries…whatever, but this is why I love it. I am in constant need of getting my head pulled out of my ass to regain perspective. Reading and writing this shit helps for whatever reason, free therapy or no. Metrodad’s post where he incites a heated debate over ads made me start to worry about the direction that all of this blogging may take. I just hope that the writing out there does indeed stay unaffiliated with sponsorship. I need diversion badly.

Max is doing great. It’s like it never happened all those needles and pricks at the hospital. I tucked him into his crib tonight watching his beautiful little face flecked with the shadow play from layers of bubble wrap and mosquito netting. Don’t worry, I cut a hole in his cocoon for air.

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