I am now on sick day #2 this week. Monday night was school conferences and I looked over at my little 6.5 yo PH. He looked glassy-eyed. I felt his head, the back of his neck...Uh oh. Burning up. In the morning he complained of a headache and a scratchy throat. Mom, RN wondered about it being strept throat. Fortunately, Peanut had a doctor appt already scheduled for his 5 yo check-up, bummer for him in that it included two shots. So, I got both boys looked at. The strept culture was negative. Whew! And PH was feeling better.
In the evening, Grandma came over for dinner and Peanut didn't want to eat, which is very unusual for him. I felt his forhead, back of the neck and he was burning up. I checked his temp. 103.4. Groan. It could be the immunizations he got but that is a little high for that, I thought. Looks like another sick day, I thought to myself.
Sometime before midnight, Peanut crept into bed with me and when he put his feet on me, they were like blazing hot irons with toes. Yup. Sick day tomorrow and I rubbed his back and went back to sleep. A while later, I was awoken to the sound of a strangled seal barking from the next bedroom. PH was coughing and crying and had wet the bed. Poor little guy.
I clicked quickly back into Mom, RN brain, which takes a little longer after midnight and after being awoken from a deep comatose sleep, and realized that this is croup. Purely viral but very distressing. I cleaned him up and then turned the shower on to the hottest setting and put PH in the bathroom to breath in the moist, hot vapors. Sure enough, after about 10 minutes, the coughing quieted down and he began to relax and was able to go to bed and fall back to sleep.
If only I could be just Mom, RN. Alas, I have clients in the community who need my services too. So I am torn. I already had to reschedule two clients from yesterday. And since I am the only nurse in the office, my co-workers can watch clients set up meds but they can't physically touch the meds. I have clients who cannot set up their medications on their own. Those would be the clients I need to see today. Sigh.
My solution then is to go in to the office for an hour, set up 4 medication boxes and then ask the case managers to deliver the meds for me. Seems reasonable. My son will be able to come with me. He will enjoy seeing my cubicle and if I give him some scratch paper, he can entertain himself and color for a while. I also have Skittles in my desk. Today is a day that calls for Bribery.
However, what I did not count on was to wake up in the morning to find myself sick. My challenge was getting everybody else ready for school while I was running back and forth to the bathroom and being unable to leave for extended periods of time because of the twisting of my insides and the "end results" from such twisting of the gut. I don't want to go anywhere. But duty is calling.
Tonight is also Boat-a-Rama at church and Pumpkin head has been looking forward to this night for 6 weeks. Princess has invited a friend to church and they are going to be making homemade ice cream as a special treat for their program. And I am running with the bulls...to the white throne.
Not a good day for the Mom. Or Mom, RN. Or Tulip, RN either.
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