Update: Keira has a bad Urinary Tract Infection. She is on a 10 day course of antibiotics and then must go have an ultrasound. Naturally, as I have gone and googled “Urinary Tract Infection”, I have found all sorts of nasty possibilities and outcomes that have made me wish I didn’t do so much research sometimes…
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Keira rests in my arms, limp from fever and tiredness. Her eyes droop as she sucks her thumb; indifferent to the aquarium her brother is now standing before, pointing excitedly: “Fish! Fish!” Normally the fish are her favourite part of a doctor’s visit.
Suddenly she sits up. “Potty!”
We rush; I drag Riley in too, and shut ourselves in the cramped toilet. She begins to cry, her throat starts to turkey-gobble, and I groan, “Oh no, not here.”
Bile, thick and yellow, erupts from her mouth; over her clothes, the floor, and my shoes. The air immediately curdles with the smell and I, as if by reflex, begin to sob as well. If there is one thing I have never been able to stand – in my soul, it hurts – it’s the sight of a child vomiting. I grab towels and hunt Riley away from the mess he wants to play in. The job is too big to do alone, so I open the door and cry desperately, “Can I please get a hand, somebody?”
Mercifully, a nurse comes quickly to my side. “Had a hard night, right?” she asks, putting a hand on my shoulder as I sob. “Come on,” she whispers, and I take that to mean, ‘pull yourself together for your girl.’
Together we strip Keira down and wrap her blanket around her toga-style because I forgot to bring her spare clothes. Like I forgot to bring a spare nappy, which Riley, I suddenly realise, is in dire need of.
We come out of the toilet to the sympathetic looks of the other waiting patients.
All except one:
The woman, sitting with her eyes fixed on a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting, her posture plainly saying, “I’m not going to look at you because I don’t want to know about this part of parenting yet.”
So I deliberately avoided her gaze too, my way of saying, “I don’t blame you.”
Diagnosis? UTI? Pneumonia? Gastro? Virus? Doctor can’t tell until we get some results back. How very reassuring. The only thing more frustrating than “We don’t know what’s wrong” is “Anything could be wrong…”
