Vicodin, the great pain reliever.

   The kids first day back to school was a doozie. So crazy in fact that by the end of the day I needed a Vicodin. The craziness began with my off-road parking in the morning when I walked them into the school and to their classes. Crazy, yes. Unexpected, no. It’s always an ordeal on the first day of school. So I deal with that, only to come home to an ordeal of another kind. It was called Find The Car Keys That The Two Year Old Hid Because Her Father Didn’t Put Them Where They Belong. Or FTCKTTTYOHBHFDPTWTB if you want to abbreviate it. We played that fun game for the better part of an hour until Jerry found the hidden keys in a desk drawer. Unfortunately for him he checked there after the trashcan. That’ll teach him. If wading through yesterday’s garbage doesn’t make him change his habit of just putting his keys any ‘ole place I don’t think anything will. We shall see.

   Fast forward a few hours and it’s now 2 o’clock and time to go get the kids from school. Before leaving the house I ask Ella no less than 3 times if she needs to go potty’s. Each time she says no. Why I took a three year old’s word when I KNEW she needed to go is beyond me. I assumed after a year of being potty trained that she’s got a handle on her own bodily functions. A mistake I’m still shaking my head at today. Because no sooner then I clicked my seatbelt after strapping both her and her sister in their car seat’s I hear a tiny voice from the back saying “Mommy, I need to go potty’s!” Seriously kid? You live for this stuff don’t you? So I ask her to hold it. Partly because I don’t want to be stuck at the tail end of the massive line I know is already forming at the school and partly because it’s 8000 degrees outside and I can’t leave Emery in the hot car while I take Ella potty’s. Taking them both in would be a 30 minute process too, so ix-nay to that. So yep, you gotta hold it kid.

  On average we sit in the car line for about 15-20 minutes before the older two are picked up, buckled in and we leave the school. On this day we sit for 54 MINUTES! Outrageous. It was a disorganized, bumper-car inducing mess. I’ve sat in traffic jams on the highway that took less time to clear then that carpool line did yesterday. By the time I finally had Kayley and Caleb in the car Caleb was a hot sweaty mess from sitting outside and roasting that whole time. Poor fella.

   So I took them by DQ really quick to get a slushy drink so they could cool off and sip that while we waited for my doctor appointment that was scheduled just a few minutes later. Over the weekend I developed this swollen mass about half way down the back side of my left ear. And it huuuuurrtttttssssss. I can’t emphasize the pain enough. I slept only a few hours over the weekend because of the pain and by Monday morning I couldn’t schedule a doctor appointment fast enough. Luckily they could get me in. At 3:15. With all four kids who were either fed up from waiting in the car to go potties or from waiting out in the sun for the parking lot to be cleared. Fun times.

   So finally I have all four children with me in the small room meant to contain 3-4 people tops and our beloved doctor is examining me while Ella and Emery play at her feet and cling to her legs. And then Dr. Amazing does something she’s never done to us before. She leaves the room quickly with a “I’ll be right back” thrown over her shoulder as she leaves. She comes back soon after to tell me that I have mastoiditis and she had called a local ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) Dr. and that he wants to see me NOW! She explains that this is a very serious bacterial infection that can quickly progress to meningitis, brain infections and death. So I need to “leave, go, he’s waiting on you now!”

  Fantastic. I now need to take my four children who are DONE withall of this and just want to go home and we need to head to another doctor’s office and find out how close I am to dying. Dramatic, yes. But also a true story. I called the hubs, who works nearby and he was able to meet me at the second appointment so that he could watch the kids while I had a nice little freak out session with the ENT doctor. I’m getting kinda wordy here so I’ll wrap this up quick. Dr. Love (I’ll explain why I now love him in another post later this week) checked me out with all of his cool ear gadgets and confirmed the mastoiditis but thankfully it was caught before hospitalization and surgery were required. He prescribed an extremely strong antibiotic that should hopefully clear this junk up but has a side effect of increased odds of muscle tendon’s tearing. Universe, I’m begging you now, PLEASE SPARE THE TENDONS! Also prescribed were the oh so lovely Vicodin that I can only take at night because of how sleepy they make me. After taking the kids to go wait at the pharmacy, it was now past dinner time and approaching the third hour of our post school insanity. I needed that Vicodin more than ever.