urgent care

For the past week, Ethan has been sick, really sick. What started off as him not feeling good and spending the day with his grandma turned into an entire week, with a spiking fever of 104. I got him back on Friday and he seemed well enough but still a bit off. We spent the weekend pretty low key, had soccer, had lunch with nana and papa and later on, went to a friend's BBQ. All was going well, until our friend's daughter started screaming "Ethan's mom, Ethan's puking!" And there he was in the kitchen with some strawberry spit up on the ground. The kid next to him kindly explained that Ethan was yelling for so long that he threw up. Awesome. We soon departed and headed home. It did not occur to me at this point that maybe Ethan was not 100%.

The next day, we decided to take Ethan to the "elephant zoo" (Brookfield Zoo) because he had missed the field trip there on Friday, and he really wanted to see the bear exhibit. We arrived and what started as "two adults and one child" turned into "I would like to purchase the annual family membership," which in my mind pretty much inexplicably insures that we will never return. The zoo was hot and all of the animals were hot. We were all moving pretty slow, especially Ethan, who usually bounds from animal and animal. He even refused popcorn and ice cream, which made us start to think that something was definitely off.

Later that same day, Ethan started to complain that his stomach hurt, this went on for a few hours. We took him into urgent care, which was a rather interesting experience. The doctor was wearing a three piece suit with a red tie and had a rather large bald head and spoke with an incredibly thick accent, calling Ethan, "BABY!" We both felt a little dubious. But his diagnosis ended up being spot on, he told us that it was not appendicitis, and then wrote us out a prescription, explaining that it was an anti-nauseous drug. I informed him that Ethan wasn't really throwing up, and then he smiled and assured me that he will most definitely throw up. And as if on cue, Ethan starts vomiting, all over the place. It was horrifying and slightly hilarious at the same time.

Unfortunately, the hilarity did not stop there. The next day, Ethan continued to complain that his stomach hurt and I thought it may have been because he hadn't pooped in two days. So I fed him a bunch of prunes and then B tells me that water helps with constipation, so he drank a bunch of water. And then we laid down to read books, and then he says that he has to go to the bathroom. Success, I thought. But really just the opposite. Ethan started puking all over the place, again. But this time we were not in a doctor's office that we could leave, we were in his bathroom encouraging him to focus his energies on the toilet. We were completely unsuccessful, he was like a loose fire hose, prunes and water everywhere.

All of this may be a bit too much information. But I did take away from this an important lesson, that sometimes you have to go through some bad to remember the good. Ethan reminded me that what I love about him is his endless amounts of energy and the sound of his sweet voice asking endless amounts of questions. Seeing him feel so bad and barely eating for the past few days was rough, on both of us. But I am happy to report that the monster awoke bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning, and is back to his normal self.