Bandaid Butt

I started my morning yesterday just like any other. Wake up at five thirty, hop in the shower, have my coffee, yada yada. At six thirty, like always, I go upstairs to rouse my children for school. I get halfway up the stairs when I hear, "Mommy, my throat hurts." I'm thinking, "Ya gotta be kidding me". So, I get my Maddie Girl dressed, wake up her brothers, Chris and Jake, and head her down the stairs. What do I need to do first? Take her temperature. Can I find the thermometer? Of course not!! So, what symptoms do I know for sure... her throat hurts and she's a little warm. I get her to open her throat and say AAAH when I almost got knocked over by morning breath. New plan, FLASHLIGHT. By this time, Chris and Jake are downstairs. I've got the flashlight and I'm shining it at the back of her throat but all I can see are what I think are tonsils. Okaaaay, boys come here and let me see your throats. I compare their "healthy" throats to Maddie's and realize, "Houston, we have a problem." Dare I say STREP??


So, I take the boys to school and come home. Call work and say I have to take my daughter to the doctor and don't know when/if I will be in that day. Schedule an appointment with a doc and make some more coffee. The time finally rolls around to go to the doctor's office, a new doctor I should add. So, I'm not quite sure what to expect. The nurse calls us back, checks Maddie's vitals, looks at her throat, comments on her tonsils and tells me she's gonna have to do a strep culture. I explain it to my girl so that she understands. The nurse comes in, does her thing and even brings Mads a sucker. Next thing you know, she comes back and says yep its strep and the doctor will be in shortly.



Would you believe the doctor really was in there within just a few minutes? He looks her over, we talk about what course of treatment to take and then we discuss her brief medical history. It didn't take long for me to realize that he is one of those doctors you don't come across very often. He says he'd like to send her to a nephrologist at Cincinnati Children's just to make sure her kidney problems from the past are nothing to be concerned about given our family history, (my uncle just recently had a kidney transplant and my grandpa used to have kidney problems). It didn't take long for us both to realize that he is also the doctor who will be in charge of my five year old niece's treatment of I-Cell disease, (ML II).



Anyways, I told Maddie she would be getting a shot. With some apprehension, she agreed that it would be better than having to take medicine for ten days. The nurse comes in, sits down and asks my little girl if she knew what was going to happen. She took the time to explain and demonstrate EXACTLY what they were going to do. She leaves and comes back with the syringe and another nurse, (who was just as wonderful). They get Mads up on the "bed", I hold her hand, they clean her lil butt cheek, and she gets the shot. Yes, she cried that it hurt but she didn't try to stop them or move. They put a bandaid on her butt, a Dora bandaid, and Maddie laughed when I told her she could sit on Dora's head for the rest of the day.



That afternoon, we go pick up the boys from school and she told them what had happened that day. Of course, as soon as Jacob found out Mads had a bandaid there, for the rest of the day, he called her "Bandaid Butt".