So Tommy developed a nasty cold recently. He had a barky cough two nights ago and his breathing sounded bad so I made the assumption it was croup. I called the doctor today to see what they thought and they said bring him in.
I took him to the doctor after the second night of rough breathing but his cough had improved in sound. It wasn't as barky. When I took him outside in 7 degree weather, it didn't improve his breathing like it should for croup. When we went to the doc, we saw the nurse practitioner for the first time. She checked him out and wanted a chest x-ray.
Oh boy.
They have an x-ray department in the building so that was nice. We went to see 'Marilyn' in x-ray. I don't think Marilyn had ever dealt with a child before even though she worked in a Pediatrics/Obgyn. She asked what the patients name was from across the room. I said Thomas. Tommy yelled to her, "My name is Tommy T!" Sorry I didn't clarify, little man.
As with any chest x-ray of a child, they have to strap him into a horrible medieval contraption with his arms over his head so they can get a good picture.
It looks like this.
So this woman tries to strap Tommy into this thing. This is not Tommy's first rodeo. He knows what's coming and he is none too pleased. He is screaming bloody murder and fighting it every inch. He's much stronger than the last time he had to do this and he showed it. She brought in another woman but she was a frail older lady and she was no help either. With all the finagling she was doing to get him in it, she said he must have somehow broken it because she couldn't get it to turn to get him out. So she wasn't very happy about that. So finally when she got the pictures she needed, we pulled him out of it. He had gotten himself so incredibly upset that.... oh, just wait for it... yes he threw up all over the x-ray room, all over himself, all over me. It was kind of awesome. Marilyn was, again, not happy about this and she left us in the room soaking in barf. I'm looking around the room for something to clean us up. She finally comes back in with two hospital sheets. I use those to clean up while she leaves again. She then comes back with a dry towel and wet towel. I finished up all the cleaning and plopped the whites into her red biohazard bag. Tommy was crying during all of this saying, "I wanna go take a nap in mama and dada's bed." Poor guy was ready to get the heck out of there.
All I can say about this part of the story is thank the good Lord that he didn't throw up IN THE CONTRAPTION. Can you imagine??
I made the mistake of saying I was going to take Tommy's picture after his 'torture pictures' from the x-ray. He was not happy.
So then we meet with the nurse practitioner again and she says everything about Tommy looks great. No croup, no pneumonia, nothing like that. It is apparently an asthma flare up with his cold. So I think it's time to finally accept that he does officially have the triple whammy (eczema, allergies, asthma). We had hoped that he would only have the eczema and allergies ('cuz two out of three ain't bad) but oh well. He can still grow out of all them. He grew out of the eczema so there's definitely a chance.
(By the way, did you know some very famous athletes have asthma? Jerome Bettis, Juwan Howard, Dennis Rodman, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Greg Louganis, Emmitt Smith, Dominique Wilkins, Kristi Yamaguchi and many gold medal winning swimmers who I haven't heard of but am super impressed with! Yeesh grammar.)
Tommy was super excited about the Curious George pic in the office but that didn't improve his mood. Poor sick boy.
Anyway, so while we were finishing up with the nurse practitioner, I mentioned that Tommy didn't enjoy the x-ray. She mentioned that it didn't sound good (she heard him from down the hall). I told her that Tommy may have broken the contraption and he puked all over the x-ray room. The NP burst out laughing. She said, "Oh my, I bet Marilyn was in a real tizzy." She loved it. She must know her pretty well. Really put the cherry on top for the appointment.
So if you have a chance, send some good thoughts/vibes to Tommy that he recovers quickly. I hate to see my little guy so sick. Plus I think he misses school and his friends. Come on, Tommy! Get well soon!
