A Week of 1,000 Deaths, Part 2

So Monday morning we woke up early, poor K was feeling awful from the flu and I was starting to develop symptoms. However, Pig had been sleeping well, she ate, she pooped, she played, the rest of the weekend went well. We got Pig dressed and ready for daycare. Her cheeriness was contagious, perhaps she knew she was headed to daycare. K and I laughed and sang with her all the way to the body shop where my car was waiting. I kissed Pig and K goodbye and went off to my monthly ob/gyn appointment.

On the Moo front, all is well. He has a nice strong heartbeat, he's measuring 5 days older than expected so K and I are readying ourselves for a big boy. He's got a helluva kick on him, feels like I'm carrying a baby ostrich some days.

Came back home, worked while Kris rested upstairs. When it came time to pick Pig we both got ready and left looking forward to seeing her cheery little face. I knew something was wrong when I heard crying the minute we walked into her daycare providers house. It wasn't whining or that sulky wah-wah noise, it was full-on, crying in distress. But I still couldn't believe it was my child, she doesn't cry that way for one thing.

We went downstairs and found her daycare provider, Mrs. V. changing her diaper and Pig was wailing away, redfaced, very unhappy. K scooped her up, which usually soothes but she kept crying. We assumed it was fatigue, Mrs. V, told us her nap had been short and she hadn't eaten very much. We thought well, perhaps she's developing the flu as well. So we took her out, she screamed as we put her into her carseat and continued to cry. She finally passed out and remained quiet until K took a sharp turn, she woke up suddenly screaming. I remember thinking that was odd. Like all kids, she hates being woken up when she's tired but she doesn't scream.

Thus began a night of horridness. We decided to put her straight to bed. I left K to look after Pig and went to the grocery store to replenish our fridge. When I got back, pandemonium, K had been rocking her and when he put her down in her crib, she began screaming. Nothing would soothe her, milk, her rainforest toy. She began passing little farts so we thought, okay, she must have really bad gas. So we rubbed her belly in clockwise motions and sang and tried to soothe her. Her crying would subside and then resume...and they were frantic cries of pain.

We gave her some baby tylenol and then as K continued to rock her, I went downstairs to my computer to do some research. Could it be gas, a urinary tract infection, ear infection, bad flu symptoms? None of them made sense. Pig had had some gnarly constipation before and had only whined. A UTI might do it but we had taken her temperature and it was normal and her urine had no weird odor. Ear infection? Possibly but didn't explain the frantic screaming. Cold/flu symptoms while they disturbed her sleep didn't really bother her. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

A few hours passed and still Pig cried. I decided to call her pediatrician Dr. K. and was told that it might be gas so to go ahead and try a glycerin suppository. That should bring on a bowel movement shortly and if that didn't provide relief to give a dose of motrin. It that didn't work within 30 minutes, to head to the ER. K continued to rock and try to soothe her and I ran out in search of the suppositories. Our local grocery store only carried the adult size, damn. I sat in my car and started calling drugstores and found a Rite Aid 10 minutes away that had them. I rushed back home with them praying that K had succeeded in soothing Pig and that we wouldn't have to resort to using the suppositories. The minute I walked in, the crying started up again.

The suppository did nothing. I got the motrin ready but before we could use it, Pig passed out. She had been farting up a storm the entire time so we assumed that she managed to get most of the gas out. Relieved, we collapsed into our beds. Pig slept until 9 am, she had had an appointment set to receive her second flu shot so we got ready to go. She cried as we got her changed and ready.

So we repeated our nightime saga to Dr. K. When we told her that Pig would cry everytime we shifted our position as we held her, she began probing and proding a bit more until she finally reached the neck and head region. Pig began crying hard and eureka, we found our problem. Pig had fractured her clavicle. There was no bruising or redness in the area. In fact, unless you looked real hard, you couldn't even see the bump. K got teary-eyed and I tried hard to keep it together in front of the doctor. We decided to head over to Howard County General across the street to get x-rays done and in the car as I tried to explain to my parents what had happened, I found myself sobbing so hard I could barely get the words out.

Oh the guilt. K and I thought of how many times we shifted her in our arms the night before in hopes of helping the gas out. How we changed her onesie that morning, lifting both her arms. How she spent the night crying her eyes out before her parents had no idea. I cried more in the waiting room. I know she won't remember this when she gets older but I wished desperately that there was a way I could tell her that we were sorry and that despite our clumsiness we hadn't meant to hurt her. Gawd, it's the worst feeling the world, to know that your child is hurting, had been hurting and there wasn't a damn thing we could do about it. My sweet little smiley faced child, who had been so cheery that morning...my heart aches just thinking of it

The x-rays confirmed the fracture. After another visit to Dr. K to get further instructions, we went back home to get Pig in bed. Needless to say that night was rough. Pig was having trouble getting comfortable despite the Motrin and cried on and off all night. Her temperature spiked so we frantically stripped her down trying to get the temperature down. I had developed bronchitis and severe chest pains at this point so the running around was wearing me down. At one point, I put my face down onto the duvet in our bedroom and thought, please God, can you give me the broken clavicle instead...please just one thing at a time, please just one catastrophe at a time...because as we were worrying about Pig's clavicle, she had started showing flu symptoms as well and the dogs were still projectile pooping and needed to be taken out every two hours.

It's Friday night and all seems to be well. The little twinkle in Pig's eye was returned her eye and she splashed up a storm in her bath. Thank heaven she's eating, drinking and pooping normally. She's been asleep for 2 hours. So K and I are slowly exhaling.

Kirby still has diarrhea but hey one thing at a time, right?