Check-Up and Follow-Through

Shane's complained for the last couple of days it burns when he pees. He didn't act overly bothered, so I wasn't worried. Carrie was. 

Carrie has a history of UTIs including one that hospitalized her in her teens (She didn't realize what it was and hadn't told anyone). So when Shane started saying "It burns," she went on alert. \

We told Shane to drink lots of water (he didn't) and to keep peeing and flushing out his system (he didn't).

Maybe you can already tell where this is headed.

A couple of days later, Shane complained to Carrie after his morning pee and I walked out of the bedroom to "You're going to the urgent care with Shane." 

It wasn't how I wanted to start my morning. However, I figured one of two things would happen: Shane would get medicine he needed or we'd be told "There's nothing there," so the worrying could stop.

I told Shane as such in the car. "Either you've been exaggerating and I'm going to be upset you worked your mom up or you need help and the doctor will give it to us."

Carrie wanted us to rush and make it to the urgent care when they opened to get a walk-in.

1st problem - Frost.

2nd problem - No ice scraper. 

Carrie helped me find the Volvo's where she'd put in the garage after cleaning it out. Shane and I were on the way sans breakfast.

We got to the Urgent Care at 5th Street Station shortly after it opened at 8 AM.

3rd Problem - The doors were locked. No walk-ins were allowed. We had to call for an appointment which was the opposite of what the website said. This led to the...

4th Problem - The phone lines were busy, because everyone else was doing the same thing.

I left a voicemail at one point and then kept spamming the line. Carrie started to, as well. I won the phone lottery after ~20 minutes and we got to talk to a human. They gave us an 8:40 AM appointment. 

The nurse came out to the car to scan our temperatures and escort us inside. 

Shane got to pee in a cup. "It didn't feel bad this time!"

He might've been worried they'd give him a shot. 

Peeing in a cup is a life experience. Maybe Shane will know what to do during a future doctor's visit, because of this moment (and I can say at his future wedding I changed his diapers and helped him pee in a cup).

We holed up in a waiting room as per a typical checkup. The masks were knew. Me telling Shane not to mess with everything was the same old same old.

The doctor arrived and gave a bubbly Shane a check-up. He was giggling and laughing and telling her it tickled when she was pressing around his abdomen looking for pain.

Shane's very articulate for a child his age. He explained what he felt and he did it so well it occurred to me the doctor might think I coached him! If he was more of a reader, I would have suspected he'd read up about his symptoms online to know what to say!

The tests came back inconclusive. There were white blood cells and some blood in the urine that indicated something might be happening, but not bacteria registered. The doctor recommended we wait a couple of days for the culture to come back based on how healthy Shane seemed.

All that was left to do was checkout! Shane played with the fish tank while I talked to a woman at the desk. She was looking up news on COVID developments. I imagine it's pandemic-o-clock all the time for them working at a medical center.

Shane's leveled out percentile-wise with his growth. That's probably my side of things kicking in. He was much higher on the charts as a baby!

I wanted breakfast, so Shane and I scooted over to Wegmans for a pair of breakfast sandwiches. 

We hit up the supplements aisle at Carrie's request.

She wanted some vitamin C to help flush Shane's system and clear things out.

I grabbed some tea and a few other small items before we headed home.

But that's not where the story ends.

I was wrong.

Two days later it was Saturday. Shane's pee still burned. The urgent care called and said the culture came back positive. They said to go straight to the ER if he ran a fever and called in a prescription to the pharmacy. Carrie was in town and went to the pharmacy to pick it up....only the doctor's prescribed something Wegman's didn't have. 

The next couple hours Carrie grew increasingly frustrated as the pharmacy couldn't get a hold of the doctor (remember our early busy line problems?). Carrie started to call herself and eventually got through. The new prescription was faxed over a few minutes later.

Shane hated the taste of the medicine. The prescription was for 16 ml of liquid twice a day and he threw up the first sips in the kitchen garbage.

Great.

I tried to coach Shane on how to gulp it down, but he didn't dare. Instead, he'd sip and act like he was dying. "If you hate the taste so much, why are you trying to get more of it by sipping!?"

Saturday night, Shane had a single drop of pinkish pee and he called out he was bleeding. You can imagine how well all this went over with Carrie. She was worried that the infection might have gone on too long.

Yet aside from all that, Shane was running hyper and wrestling Loki. 

I had a talk with Shane before bedtime where I said, "I was wrong. I thought you'd be better if you'd drank water and kept flushing your system."

Being able to admit a mistake is humbling and the first step in rectifying it. I wanted to make sure Shane knew I thought that was an important bit of character.....and that he needed to stop whining about his medicine.

The next several days we tried putting the horrific pink goo ("It's as bad as tamiflu!") in applesauce and in Jello. Shane had to be coerced to finish each time.

Tuesday, Shane finally took my advice. 

"Tilt your head up. UP! Not down. That makes it roll back on to your tongue so you taste it. You want it to go down as fast as you can, so you DON'T have it on your tongue."

I called it gulping, but Shane basically figured out how to take a shot.

"That was easy!" Shane cheered.

We didn't have a problem with the medicine for then on. Shane walked around boasting about how easy it was to gulp. Maybe we can train him to swallow pills for the next time he needs medicine!

As for what caused the UTI? I'm 98% sure it was a long bath. Shane's always loved long baths. He's taken them for years. He swirls the water and plays (with only the water and toys, I hope). I kicked him out of a bath after close to 40 minutes earlier in the week. I was tempted to let it go longer to keep him off electronics and out from underfoot, but it's going to be showers only now!