so here's the scoop

It all started on Easter Sunday.  Or the night before.  Because that night?  Sucked.  Actually it SUCKED!!!!!  But it's like, a month later, almost, so I'm over it.  Mostly. 

Anyway.  Sweets woke up with a bazillion pus-filled blisters on his pelvis.  Well, maybe not a bazillion, but when yo' babeh has teh nastys on his parts?  It's a bazillion.   Also, I had a little fever.  Just weird.  Not I'm just weird, the fever was just weird.

We went to visit our friend the doctor the next day, and she thought Sweets had thrush.  Except, here's the thing, I said, I don't have thrush.  Because I know when I have thrush.  So she prescribed some Nystatin-esque cream to rub into his parts.  And that stuff?  Did not work.  Unless the idea was to increase the number of blisters, because those guys were fruitful and multiplied.  Not unlike the Duggars.  Except the Duggars are not blisters.  Moving on.

Friday morning of that week, Sweets woke up with a Fever.  It was a capital-F fever, 101 degrees.  I busted out the infants' Tylenol-ish product we have, and despite its claim to be for infants, it only has dosing directions for infants who weigh over 24 pounds.  Thanks, Tylenol!  You're super useful in feverish situations.  So naturally, being the conscientious parent I am, I called the doctor to find out how 'zactly much Tylenol I should give the babeh.

At which time, the doctor promptly flipped her gourd (for very good reason, honestly) and demanded that we come to the office IMMEDIATELY.  So I packed up all the short people and hit Burger King (sorry, That Girl, it was an emergency) and sped off. 

Except OF COURSE I don't actually speed, unless I'm hunting drunk drivers.  *snirk*

It's in the Doctoring of Newborns Rules that when a babeh has a high temp, they need to go directly to the hospitable and be tested for sepsis to make sure the babeh doesn't die.  So we went to the Emergency Department of Children's Hospital in Buffalo, and they poked things in his arm and in his, umm, well, the thing they poked with was a catheter, and also in his spinal cord.  They did the spinal tap twice.  I wasn't in the room for that, I think there's a really good reason why you're not allowed to watch your child get a spinal tap and that reason is called So You Don't Kill The Nurses and Doctors Doing The Spinal Tap Because There Is A Limited Number Of Those People.   And then they pumped his little self full of precautionary antibiotics, which is not something I'd allow on a regular sort of day, but seeing as how this was an Official Special Day, we took the antibiotic cocktail and smiled pleasantly.

Then, for extra special, and also because the spinal tap was a double failure, the doctor ordered an MRI or CAT scan or something involving XRAYS and HIS BRAIN and also DYE, because, you know, extra special.

And by that time?  Mama wanted a stiff drink.  Or five.  Or just a bottle of Maker's Mark would have done nicely.  Because it had been a long, stinking day, that's why.  Instead, Uncle Ben and Aunt Sarah came by with a slice of pizza and a cherry coke, which was a way better idea.  (But they did contemplate smuggling yet another round of booze into yet another hospital because they are Teh Awesomes.)

And so we were given a room, and the lovely doctors and nurses took good care of mah babeh, and by the next morning, the blisters on his pelvis had started being fruitless and had ceased multiplying.  Also, they brought me food and I didn't have to forage, and I really appreciated that.

Not so much appreciation for the nurse/random diaper collecting woman (they weighed the diapers to monitor hydration via output) who asked my not-yet-30-year-old friend if she was E's GRANDMA.  She.  Failed.  Steenky Bee tweeted me that I should ask her if she was a tranny the next time she came 'round, but I do not have a set big enough to do that, and also, I couldn't decide if she a) would know what I was talking about; or b) actually WAS a tranny and would be superoffended that I didn't notice.

Anyway.

We spent a little more than 48 hours at the hospital, so they could grow plants in E's blood and pee.  Maybe it wasn't plants they were trying to grow, but that's how I pictured it... little blood plants and little pee plants sprouting up out of the petri dish.  And YES!  It did entertain me to do that, because honestly, by hour 15 of the Jon and Kate Plus Eight Marathon I needed a little something to make me smile.  Because Kate was stressing me out.

Thanks for all your kind thoughts and prayers, and for all the tweeting that was keeping me off the rooftops, especially during the spinal tap.  I can't remember who sent me a virtual tweety dinner, or who sent me the tweetloaf, but it was awesome.  Tasted great, and was less filling than actual meatloaf.  Vegans love it!

I am so crazy behind on reading blogs.  I have over 600 posts in my reader, and that doesn't include the blogs I am following.  As the short people are getting better (HB is sick with multiple ear infections, I've actually lost count how exactly many ear infections he has at the moment, but I think it's somewhere around 93, and also some sort of GI thing that causes him to barf and crap liquid.  It's amazing in a very disgusting way.  Also, Sweets has caught the GI thing, and has been barfing neon greenish-yellow mung.  But he did gain a whopping five ounces in two days, despite the barfing.) I'll catch up on my reading and the bounty of clever comments will resume.

But for now I am going to catch up on my sleep, and cuddle my sick babies, and also the ones that are not sick, but are wicked stressed out from all the disruption.

Thanks for being awesome, y'all.