My Day Off

I set my alarm for 5:45 as I had to get Junior to daycare and Em to school before Abs and I headed out to her two appointments, the first one being at 7:30.

I woke up at 7:19. Immediately gathered my senses, and started yelling commands. We were all dressed and out the door, baby included, in 7 minutes. (This did require me to tell them to grab dirty socks cause we just didn't have time to search for socks--mom of the year I am not!) I got Junior dropped off, Em was late to school and went without her backpack, and Abs and I were a half hour late for her appointment. I never wanted to be an overachiever anyway.

After her first appointment, I wanted to get her in school for about an hour, but they were headed off on a field trip to the art show, so I took her home so we could have breakfast and then head out to her second appointment.

After that extremely long appointment, where they changed her meds, we were supposed to head over to the lab for some tests. They came to tell me Abs needed to pee in a cup as Abs was washing her hands after having used the restroom. The slow, slow, slow nurse told me she needed to try again. I told her that since she just peed, that it would not be worth our time or effort to go try and make her squeeze out a few drops. She was shocked that I wasn't going to make her pee again.

So we head back to get blood drawn. Abs starts to get upset, and the slow, slow lady says "We need to move her to a room so when she screams when I poke her with a needle it won't disturb the hospital."

Not the thing to say to an anxious 7 year old. Abs starts crying. We get into the room and the lady proceeds to tell her "stop crying, because I just need to poke you with a little needle and get some blood out of your arm". She has nothing setup and puts the blue strap on Ab's arm and leaves it there while she thumps on her elbow pit. The blue strap remains while she gets out the needles right in front of Abs and is getting everything setup. Don't forget, that we have the slow, slow, lady. All of this takes about 10 minutes.

So my poor Abs who has GAD (General Anxiety Disorder) is losing it. She starts screaming. Another person comes in to help, and we are still sitting there for another 5 minutes or so while she is wiping the elbow pit with the alcohol swab, still messing with everything else and the blue strap is still on. She sticks her, and can't get any blood. She messes with the needle some more, and by this time the room is full and I am pissed. I tell her to take it out because she can't do it, and she is still moving slow, slow, slow. She gets offended, and someone else steps in to take over. I told her as long as she did it quickly she could try, but they only had one more chance. I complained that she shouldn't have been moving so slow when she was dealing with a child like this. The other person agreed.

Debbie came in and spoke to Abs softly while Abs got pricked again, and Abs continued to scream "why do you have to take all my blood out of my body???". They finish quickly and Debbie remained there until Abs calmed down. Thank goodness for Debbie.

Then the slow, slow lady had the nerve to ask Abs to pee in a cup. I told her that it wouldn't happen, and she asked what she was supposed to tell the doctor, and I told her to tell her that they were unable to collect the specimen. She was floored that I wasn't going to make Abs pee. She obviously doesn't know Abs.

So I fed her and got her dropped off at school, and raced home to fit a nap into my day. A dream about Junior getting kidnapped and I was back up and racing to pickup children.

Abs told me after school that she had to sit a foot away from her desk because she couldn't bend her arms due to the "blood holes". At PT she was unable to do pushups because of the same problem. She's been walking around with her arms straight out in front of her since noon.

My next day off, I am scheduling absolutely nothing.