Mommychondriac

So yesterday morning we had mystery red cheeks again except this time they stuck around well after she woke up. I went ahead and called my pediatrician who of course wanted me to bring her in, that was just a tad difficult considering we're in Florida, so she talked me through Sam's symptoms and basically said if she doesn't have a fever I probably don't need to worry too much about it. She did however mention that I needed to keep an eye out for ear infection symptoms b/c flying back with Sam could be miserable if she had an ear problem. (Sam had already had a cold for about 4 days and I guess the prolonged congestion can lead to ear infections)

All I kept thinking all day was "Oh my gosh, I bet she has an ear infection and that's why she's been crying all night, oh geez we're gonna get on that plane and she's going to scream bloody murder, oh no- poor baby, oh no- poor plane passengers..." At one point I swore I even saw her pulling on her right ear (in hindsight I now think she had just spread baby food back there) so I went ahead and took her to the afterhours pediatrics down the street. Worse case scenario, she has an ear infection but I get her on antibiotics soon enough to get a head start on healing before our flight home. Best case, she's perfectly fine and I'm out a $25 copay.

Or so I thought.

I brought along my 13yr old sister with me for company which proved to be quite ego-damaging because everyone thought she was Sam's older sister. So glad I look old enough to have a teenager...anyway, the doctor sees us and says Sam's ears look great. (Whew!) But then he says her chests sounds congested and he wants to do xrays. (What!?!) Has anyone ever had to get xrays done of their infant? If so than you know, IT IS AWFUL! They made me help them strap Sam into, and this is what the nurse called it, "a medieval looking torture device"...although she swore it wouldn't hurt Sam. I found a pic, this is exactly what it looked like...Is that not the saddest, most horrible thing you've ever seen?!?? Ugh, I just want to cry from looking at the picture. Even worse is because it was so cold in there they had me keep Sam's little pink hat with the bear ears on her, so she's in this device, hands above her head, with a fuzzy pink hat on, SCREAMING. It was everything I had in me not to break down in front of the radiologist because it wasn't just crying it was that awful "I'm terrified, Mommy Mommy please come get me!" wail. I thought taking her for shots was bad but this was so much worse. All I kept thinking about was how do parents do it who have kids that need surgery, or cancer treatments...I honestly cannot imagine how hard that would be.

It brought out feelings in me that I hadn't ever felt before, I desperately wanted to rescue her, to change places with her, anything to comfort her. Which of course as soon as she got out and in my arms she was completely fine, and my brain knew she would be, but man oh man, hearing that scream, I can see how it could make a mom do crazy things!

All that to say the doctor came in 5 minutes later & said that she was perfectly fine, I should run a humidifier and the cold will pass in a few days. Seriously? That's it? Ok. So I did, and guess what? She actually could breathe enough through her nose to suck on her paci and paci = sleep. Although after that whole experience I wanted nothing more than to cuddle with her so I did just that and she slept curled up in my arms all night.