A mommy first today... I got a call about an hour ago that my sweet baby was vomiting "everywhere" and I needed to go pick him up from preschool. Yuck. And poor baby.
So I am busy scrapping my plans for the afternoon, desperately rearranging my work schedule, and waiting for a call back from the pediatrician. MLM is sleeping soundly upstairs, while Mommy waits. And wonders.
When I feel nervous, my anxiety tends to take the form of a need for information. In situations like these there is almost always a period of time during which we have no information, like between the time the school calls and the time I get there to see what's going on for myself. So it ends up being sort of an internal Q & A session...
How sick is he? Sick enough that the school felt the need to call you. Is it too much to hope that he just showed the teacher his new trick of sticking his fingers down his throat? Probably. Did I remember to pack a change of clothes for him today? Yes. Why isn't DH answering his phone? It's been 6 minutes. Why didn't I take the time to find a new pediatrician yet? Have you met you?
Once I pick him up, give him a big hug, and bundle him in the car, the questions seem to snowball. Should I call the old pediatrician or try urgent care? Would it be better for DH to come home early or for me to shuffle my clients? Should I take him home to nap or try to feed him? Is that vomiting I hear in the backseat? Is this a stomach virus or the beginning of strep throat, as the preschool director suggested? Do we have anything that gets throw-up out of car upholstery? Is it my imagination, or am I feeling a little queasy myself? What is my schedule like for the rest of the week and how disastrous would it be if MLM and/or myself were sick at home? Could it be the milk from this morning that expired today?
At home, I decide to pack MLM off to sleep, talk to DH and realize he knows exactly as much about what to do as I, check the milk and pour it out even though it smells fine, and continue waiting for a callback from the doctor's office. Now, maybe someone in the health care industry can explain this to me, but why when I just need to make an appointment for sometime in the distant future, I can call the office and talk to a live human being right away; but when I'm trying to figure out if and how to organize the rest of my afternoon around a spewing 16-month old, I get to wait 2 hours for a triage nurse to call me back? The need for information strikes again.
So, getting no answers from all the reasonable sources, I begin to direct my anxiety in a new direction, one that only mommies of my generation can really understand: the Internet. Fortunately, I'm wise enough to know that putting "baby vomiting" into a search engine is going to do me zero good. So I begin to cling to one of my amateur theories about what could be making MLM sick, and I google "can expired milk cause vomiting?"
Seriously? I am 35 years old, relatively intelligent, and I just asked the entire universe if old milk can make you sick. Someone should really go to my office, take one of my 4 degrees off the wall, and smack me in the head with it. What I really want, I realize, is to talk to a health care professional and have him or her put my anxiety to rest by giving me some direction, telling me what to look for, assuring me it is more likely this or that. At least then I'd know what today's next task would be, and I'd have some idea how to care for my little guy.
But in the absence of such reassurance, I really, really want to be able to rule out (or in) the idea that MLM just has what my grandmother used to call a "sour stomach" from drinking milk past its prime -- which would be great because it's not contagious or overly dangerous and he would likely be back to himself by tomorrow.
So I find myself trolling through chat rooms, looking for pieces of a puzzle that I wish I could put together immediately -- when deep down I know I just have to wait and see what happens. For me, that's one downside of the Internet, it allows me to continue feeding my anxiety by searching through infinite information (some credible, much more of it not) hoping for reassurance; rather than forcing me to deal with the uncertainty and move on with my day. Sometimes what we need is not more information, but more patience.
If you're wondering whether expired milk can make you sick.... Not really. Or, yes, but only if it gets thick or smells bad. Or sometimes if it is neither thick nor smelly. You should never, ever, ever drink it after the expiration date. EVER! But many people successfully drink it up to two weeks after with no problems. It can make you mildly sick. Or be fatal! Or it's fine. And never, ever drink unpasteurized milk. Unless you prefer raw milk and believe it's healthier. So listen to your mom's advice. Or conduct a testing procedure with lemon tea before drinking it. Or just throw it out. All clear now? Good.
Now if you'll excuse me I need to go see what the symptoms are for Avian Flu...
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