Manic Monday: An Unexpected Hard Day

I've really been wanting to participate in a "Manic Monday" for awhile now.

But every Monday comes and goes, and the space that I just know is meant for me over on the link-up, remains blank. Either I completely forget (spacey as an astronaut these days), or my camera is too full, or the battery is dead, or- this or that or this. I just can't seem to make it happen.

A lot of the blogs that I read (I've been spacey about keeping up with those as well, I'm so sorry, friends), host weekly meme's. I honestly don't even know what word "meme" mean-means (hah, see what I did just now? haha). To me, it means "a fun blog game that everyone plays, usually involving pictures". I could google the actual meaning, but- why waste the time, when theres something equally amusing on ebay I could be looking up instead, right?

And its not that I don't love all of your meme's, because I do. I love to read them. I love to watch everybody else play them. I just... can't really get into them myself. I crack under meme pressure, hah.

Sometimes, randomly, I'll get the urge to enter a few photo contests just for the heck of it, but I've never been steady with it.

I guess I prefer to blog on a whim?

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Anyways. Today was just as my blogger friend Sarah's meme indicated it would be- it was a very Manic Monday.

Christopher and I woke up at the same time this morning, but with me waddling rather than walking, he made it down the stairs much faster than I did. When I finally made it to the bottom, he was sitting on the couch with Charlie in his lap, and Eleanore was laying on the mattress at the bottom of the stairs (don't ask).

"Mommy I have a boo boo under my panties".

...huh?

I had just woken up, I had no idea what she was talking about. But, she was laying under a giant stuffed dog, not moving, when normally she'd be jumping up and down ready to pounce on me the second I closed the baby gate behind me.

"It hurts", she said.

"Show me", I demand. We went back and forth for a minute. I told her I didn't understand what she meant (partially because I had just woken up, and partially because shes not even four years old, and makes very little sense sometimes), and after she kept repeating the same nonsense about boo boo's and panties and it hurt while she slept but I couldn't see it- I threw my hands up into the air and walked away.

And then Christopher chimes in, and says ..."I think she might really be hurt though".

I stopped. I turned back around. I soaked up the guilt that I felt for having walked away frustrated in the first place, and then twisted it up and rang it out with an "ok Eleanore, you have to show me".

I promised her over and over again that I wouldn't touch it. I wouldn't put my hands anywhere near it, but that she had to show me. It took her 5 minutes to even stand up, and then another 5 minutes before she'd agree to show me. And even then, she didn't show me. She ended up showing her Daddy first, which made me feel like a failure as a Mother, but I sucked it up, and when she gave me my turn- nearly being held down by Christopher- I went into a complete and total panic.

Oh. My. God.

Not only was she not kidding, about having a boo boo under her panties, but- this poor girl had a massive infection that came literally out of nowhere, overnight, and she needed to be seen NOW. Right now. 5 minutes ago, NOW.

We call the doctor, we get her an appointment, and Christopher takes her.

For me, what happened next was- I sat on the couch playing trucks and doing a half ass job of reading airplane books to Charlie, while staring at my broken cell phone on the couch, waiting for it to light up with a text message (seriously, I need a working phone), giving me an update on what the heck was going on. I knew that no matter what happened, it was going to be awful for both her and Christopher, I hated myself for not being able to go (but I just couldn't put Charlie through seeing that, just like we couldn't put her through seeing his Swine Flu treatments or EEG), and ohmygod what was taking them so long?!

Finally, a text!! And it read "They're going to drain it with a needle".

What?! While shes awake? They're just going to... pin her down and drain it? Just like that?

Um. Did I happen to tell y'all where her "boo boo" was, exactly? Because-

...its where no female would ever ever ever want to have a boo boo. Imagine the absolute worst place to have an abscess. And thats where it is.

I started crying immediately. I imagined how things at the doctor's office must have been playing out, and it crushed me. Every time I started to get overwhelmed and thought I was going to hyperventilate, I tickled Charlie until I forgot about it. Poor guy, I think he choked on his own fit of giggles at least 3 times. And I kept reading him the airplane book. And we sang songs about ducks. Over, and over, and over again.

40 minutes later, they returned home. Eleanore- covered from head to toe in stickers, wearing a purple smiley face bracelet, ready to tell me aaaallllll about the giant needle and Dr. Scooby Doo (who apparently blew bubbles with nothing but his hands and the hand soap). Christopher- looking like he'd been run over by a truck.

The way that he described it to me, was that the doctor took one look at her boo boo, knew exactly his plan of action, and then together him and Christopher had to hold down all 47 pounds of my very strong kicking and screaming daughter- while the doctor punctured a small hole into her boo boo as quickly as he could.

Blood. Everywhere.

Her screams could be heard throughout the entire hospital.

MY BABY!

I honestly don't know how they did it.

She was so traumatized by the whole thing, it took them 10 minutes to get her changed out of her teddy bear hospital gown, and back into her clothes. She didn't get cleaned up. She didn't get bandaged up. And she refused to let Daddy carry her. She walked all the way from the doctor's office, to the pharmacy- limping and lagging. A broken soul.

Because of her past battles with MRSA, shes been given a stronger antibiotic than they might normally prescribe, and we've been given the instructions of "give her these meds 3 times a day, give her a bath 2 times a day, and at the first sign of the infection getting any larger, take her straight to the ER, so they can sedate her and cut it open".

*silence. blinking. eyes filling with tears while I write this.*

She won't let us near it. Shes terrified. We've given her the meds twice today. Christopher has given her her baths (hes physically, and maybe mentally, stronger than I am.), and hes been the one thats had to pin her down on the ground to clean her wound and bandage it. She screams every time. We don't hurt her, but shes still so afraid.

Tonight will be the most critical. Either her infection will start to improve, seeing as how shes started her round of antibiotics (last time, she underwent 4 rounds of treatment), and her boo boo has been draining regularly. Or- overnight, it will get worse, and we'll have to take her to the ER in the morning, to have them step it up a notch.

Ladies, can you imagine? Can you imagine having an abscess, there? Right beside, there?

We don't know what caused it. An ant bite. A spider bite. Bacteria.
We won't have results until next week.



I snuck up to her room tonight, between sweeping and steam mopping, to give her another sippy of apple juice (she needs lots of fluids to go with her meds). I knew that she wasn't sleeping, I heard her up there reading to herself. When I asked her how she felt, she said "fine", as if she had no idea what I was talking about. When I asked her more specifically, she said it wasn't hurting her right now- which is the very best answer she could have possibly given me. At that point I knew I shouldn't linger, so I just left her alone with her drink and her Bible stories, and let her calmly read in peace.



And, I left her with the comforts of her favorite MeeMaw doll, of course.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about her, though. I'll be thinking about her all night. I'll have a hard time sleeping, waiting for morning to come. Waiting to see if its gotten better or worse.

As painful as I know it all has to be, I'd gladly switch places with her. I'm sure all of you Mama's would feel the same if it were your daughter.

So ...while I didn't exactly participate in Manic Monday the way that I had hoped to, my Monday was indeed, Manic.


(click the above button to read more Manic Monday's, and maybe even play along)

Edit* Its Tuesday now, and when we checked Miss Eleanore this morning, things looked much much better. Thank, goodness. Thank you ALL for your good vibes, positive thoughts, and prayers. We so very much appreciate your being there for us.