Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

For some reason I remember this book as a favorite from my childhood, and I think that if Elijah could give a title to today, it would indeed be "The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

Oh, he was pitiful.

Elijah's temperature at 7:00 this morning was 102.4.  At 9:00 with the help of Motrin, it was 100.7.

We got to the doctor's office at 9:40 for our 9:45 appointment to which the receptionist said, "Are you sure your appointment was today?"  Um...yeah.  After a 15 minute waiting room experience in which Elijah decided it was time to poop since he hadn't yesterday (um...yeah), we were summoned back to the nurse, where his temperature was 99.5.

So, as a mom, I look like someone who came in for a "supposed" appointment with a child of a temperature of 99.5.  Needless to say, no one else seemed to be in as much of a rush to help my child as I was.  But two nights of fever and hardly any eaten food or liveliness from my sweet child makes me in a hurry to find out what's wrong.

At this point Elijah and I find ourselves waiting on the doctor for 45 minutes in a room with a very small bag of mismatched puzzle pieces to keep us occupied...and the walls were closing in.  All Elijah could think about were the awesome mobiles and fish tanks that are in the waiting room...on the other side of our closed door.

Poor thing.

After an examination that culminated in nothing to show for the root of Elijah's fever, we were sent home with instructions that a urine sample would be needed (via catheterization) if his temperature had not gone down by 1:00 (when the Motrin would be out of his system).  I dreaded Elijah waking up from his nap with a fever, but he was burning up at 4:00 when he woke.

So back to the same doctor's office that earlier in the morning I had seen transform before Elijah's eyes from the once-revered place straight into a place that he loathed.  (I mean, I think that's exactly what Elijah would say if he could!)

This time, at least Daddy was with us to help with keeping Elijah occupied.  But nothing was working.  I'm pretty sure definition #2 of the word "more" in Elijah's brain could be exemplified best by the sentence, "There must be something more (different) that I could be doing right now."  Because I'm pretty sure when he would say "More Doctor" it did not literally mean that he wanted to see more of the doctor!

Pitiful.

In a quick recap, the cauterization was awful!  Elijah screamed, moaned, and whined "Mommy" innumerable times and we were both crying by the end.  Terrible.  Makes me contemplate potty training him tomorrow.  Horrible.  But, the results were negative, so now we had to go on to the next step: blood work.

No good.

Especially since we had promised Elijah ice cream earlier in the doctor's office when we were done.  My child may be a lot of things, but he is not forgetful.  So a trip to the hospital it was.  Again, for negative results.  I'm glad all the results were good, but what terrible ways to have to find out!

The unexpected highlight of the day was getting to watch a helicopter take off right by where we had parked. On any other day, Elijah would have been ecstatic, but I don't think he could muster up enough energy to be excited.

We headed to Sonic for some ice cream (for his dinner) and he didn't even want to finish that.  He went to bed with a 104.7 temperature and parents praying for a speedy recovery.

It truly was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which makes me SO thankful for an overall healthy child.  For Elijah's first real temperature, this was a lot for his Mommy to take in!