The view from the trenches

Our family spent Saturday night through Wednesday in the throws of rotavirus. It was a blur of vomiting, fever, diarrhea, body aches, and general ickiness. Yesterday we all finally went back to work and day care respectively, but this morning Roxanne threw up in the car again. So now the two of us are back home again and I'm just hoping against hope that it is just a big spit-up. I'm currently waiting for the pediatrician's office to open so I can call and try to get her in. Of course, since they open at 9, the phone line has a busy signal for the first half hour or so.

That brings me to another point. We had to get in for an emergency appointment on Monday there and our appointment was for 11:15. Of course Roxanne had a blow out when were walking out the door, and we ended up being fifteen minutes late (I did call and warn them we were late). When we got there, the waiting room was packed with sniffly babies and toddlers. Our pediatrician does not have a sick and well waiting room. We ended up being in the waiting room for about 45 minutes, and the whole time I kept wondering whether or not Roxanne was infecting all these kids with her virus, and also what viruses we might be picking up. By the time we got called back, I was crying, and Roxanne had pooped through her outfit. Five minutes after being in the exam room, I had to go throw up. I love the staff at our pediatrician so I hate to complain, but it just seems terrible to have one tiny waiting room packed full of sick and well kids. I guess that's another part of living intown.

Later on Monday we went to Scottish Rite to get an ultrasound on Roxanne's belly because the pediatrician wanted to make sure that everything looked OK with her insides. The ultrasound was fortunately normal, but the trip was awful, too. I was still throwing up constantly, and Roxanne was really hungry, but we had to make her wait 3 hours to eat for the ultrasound. She was inconsolable in the waiting room of radiology until two of the hospital clowns came in and sang just for her. She was totally mesmerized.

I'm just so exhausted with this. It's so hard to see your baby sick. Especially when you feel like they are getting most of it from being in day care. We love her day care, and there are very few other babies in with her, but still. I wish I could work from home. Maybe if the entire "work from home" job market weren't primarily populated with scams...