The Battle of Snot-Green Shirt

After Tyson waged all out warfare on poor lil ol' me a few weeks ago, I have avoided taking him out on my own inadvertently until I recharged my super powers to do it again by myself.  Luckily, he's been good about outings in this time.  Maybe he learned a lesson?

Understandably, my medically fragile Tyson, who spent the first 8 months of his life in the hospital and then every other month for more than a year with admissions and countless pokes and prods at doctors' offices and labs and xrays and so on and so forth, has a pathological fear of anything that remotely looks like it could possibly slightly be a hospital or a doctor's office.  He cries and screams and shakes and says "No!" over and over and over again even when he just needs his ears looked at or his lungs listened to.  He also often becomes combative, pulling my hair, swatting my glasses off my face, kicking and punching, at times.  As you may have guessed, I rarely go on these trips by myself.  Luke comes with me when he can, but very often my mom (my personal Super Hero) makes these trips with me.

Yesterday, Ty woke up with a huge green slab of snot from his nose to his chin.  He has had an increase in mucus over the last few days and started a pretty good cough.  Ty's coughs are almost always caused by post nasal drip unless there's a lung infection going on.  Since the cough increased and the snot got green we called the pediatrician to come in and make sure we catch the crud early before it moves to his lungs and takes him over.  Now remember, Tyson has a trach because his lungs are scarred quite a bit from his prematurity, so he is quite fragile medically.  In the last year, he's been able to fight all infections off at home with no extra ventilator time or oxygen, which is a huge difference from the past years where he'd regress back to 24/7 vent use and hospital stays from 3-14 days in length.  But we still try to always catch infections early.  Unlike other kids, a common fever can kick Ty on his ass completely, causing him to sleep upwards of 20 hours a day, and germs anywhere (his nose, ears, throat, etc) can easily pass down to his lungs attacking the weak part and become way worse than originally.  So we are diligent about acting on his every cough and sniffle.  Wait, that's a little too cautious.  It's more like we watch every cough and sniffle and as soon as they become different then we act on them.

Anywho, back to traumatic Tyson trips by myself.  When I made the appointment yesterday for this morning, Luke was going to be coming with me.  This morning, however, the old man woke up in intense pain in his left knee unable to bend it, curling up in the fetal position and crying like a wounded animal that he needed his leg amputated.  Well, not really, it was fun to paint that weak picture of my stalwart man for you though. He woke up and his knee was shot.  It's been hurting for a few days now but has progressively gotten worse and today has been the worst.  So I donned my metal armor and packed Tyson up to take him to the doctor myself since my husband has been hobbling around since he woke up.

Our pediatrician's office is about 50 minutes away from our house because we live in the middle of nowhere in Mid-Michigan.  For some reason, Ty has a sixth sense about direction and where we are heading.  As soon as I turn on a certain road he can tell me where we are going.  When it's to the doctor's, he tells me with a scream and shrill no's.  Usually he calms down for a while and then starts his antics up again after we get there, but today he decided to cry the whole way there.  I tried to calm him down, but you can only do so much when your kid is screaming hysterically while you are driving.  Plus, I knew there was nothing I could say that would get him to stop...except maybe that he would get to go to "Da Wahmaht Stoy" after his appointment if he calmed down, but I tried that and failed miserably.

Have you ever been at your child's doctor and you can hear a distant cry in one of the rooms and you think, "Aw, poor kid", but then things are ok?  Ty was that kid, but it didn't just last a second.  We sat in the waiting room for about 5 minutes with him screaming and crying and burying his snotty green nose on my chest right between my boobs (luckily, my shirt matches his snot so you can't really see it!)....and everyone looking at us!  Most of the parents were concerned and pitying.  The kids were intrigued and wanted to comfort their fellow toddler buddy.  And then this one woman actually picked her child up and walked out of the waiting room huffing about how it was "so loud" and "obnoxious" in there.  My first instinct was to punch that lady in the face.  My second instant was to trip her child so that her kid screamed and cried and she couldn't stop her and I would look right into her eyes and say, "That's so obnoxious!"  My third instinct was to pity her.  How can ANY mother not sympathize with another mother who is comforting their terrified child?  Then I let it roll off my back (at least enough to not make me utterly pissed, but kept it enough to write about it now).

Ty's doctor is very good about not letting us stay in the waiting room because they don't want him to pick up things from the other kids especially if he is already ill and weaker than normal.  So like I said, we were only in the waiting room for 5 minutes max until they called us back.  We get first-class treatment there.  And I love to see the jealousy in the eyes of those waiting because we just got there but we get to go back already!  Nanner nanner boo boo!!! Granted we do get to go back, but we also do wait as long as any other person does in the waiting room. So it's not like we are fed grapes and fanned with big ostrich feathers.  We waited for a half hour in our room and he cried the whole time.  I'm pretty sure he left at least a half inch thick snot coating on my shirt.  I stayed calm, I didn't let him get to me and make me mad.  I didn't let the waiting get to me either.  I just practiced some breathing exercises and kept positive.  I kinda spaced out and didn't even hear him anymore to be honest.

You know how children jump when a balloon is popped and they look scared to death?  Ty looks like that when a door opens at a doctor's office.  Dr. Mike walked in, Ty jumped out of his skin and turned ghost white....and he farted (which made me giggle inwardly).  Dr. Mike isn't our usual doctor, but ours is on vacation, and I trust him more than the other guy because we have seen him before.  And he is one freaking fantastic pediatrician, let me tell you!  We see A LOT of doctors with Tyson's condition and the ones that I like and trust are the ones that make Tyson feel more comfortable.  So Ty jumped (and farted) and almost started to cry but then Dr. Mike chatted with him about Spiderman on his sweatshirt and Lightnin' McQueen on his shoes.  Ty made a new best friend in a heart beat.

Really?  I went through all that for a simple chat about his buddies for Tyson to relax?  Sigh....the things I go through for that kid!  Turns out he's fine.  Just a simple cold, but he put him on antibiotics preventatively since he easily catches other things and/or the infections get worse quickly.  After that quick little visit, Ty jumped up off the bench and bounded to the front desk saying, "Oh, where's my bideyman dicker!" (Get yer mind out of the gutter, I swear that's how he says "sticker"!)

So I fared another battle with minimal bruising (one good hair pull and two slaps to my glasses, and a whole lotta snot on my shirt)...I didn't win it but I got through it.  I'm trying to get him to realize that I'm not going to give him a reaction when he acts like that, and I'm diligently trying to allow other people's opinions, stares, pitiful looks, etc. to not bother me immensely.  I'm human and I'm a mother, so yes, they do bother me to some extent, but I am not letting them ruin my life anymore.  I think I'm getting better at this.