What is the story?

All I can say is: WHAT THE FUCK?? I don't even care that I dropped the F-bomb. What the fuck?

Last night after several days of Nick getting progressively more and more sick his fever went to 105.5. So we doped him up on Tylenol and I took him to the pediatric emergency department at the university. We had held off on taking him in because the Nurse Advice line had told us that anything under 104 was no big deal. I now believe they are full of shit.

There I sat in the peds emergency department for 5 or 6 hours (but who is counting) waiting to be seen by a doctor. I later found out that they had one of the busiest nights for pediatric trauma for the last several years. Great. And this was the night I happened to be there. So I sat there safely locked into the peds department watching through the glass as a man collapsed in the waiting area for the adults. Then I watched as a drunk woman tried to attack a desk clerk because no one would discharge her because SHE WAS DRUNK. (In case you are dying to know: her boyfriend called the "pigs" on her and she didn't do anything to deserve this. Next time she is calling the cops on him so he knows what it feels like to be incarcerated at the hospital with no food. At least in jail they gave her food.) Thankfully they have security guards everywhere - especially on a Saturday night. The little boy next to me started throwing up everywhere. And every time a sick baby would wake up screaming it would wake up all the other babies whose mommies and daddies had just managed to get them to fall asleep and the whole room would erupt into crying, pacing, bouncing, shushing and vomiting. 5 hours. Maybe 6. Again. I can't remember. Too tired.

I do remember MY little boy limp, red faced from the fever, and totally uninterested in the activity of the room which is so unlike him. I also remember watching a family come rushing into the waiting area frantic to find out what had happened to their child who had arrived by ambulance. Something involving brain trauma and open wounds and lots of x-rays. I was really happy that I was just there for an unexplained fever. And it is funny to say but I was happy that I was one of the ones who HAD to wait. Because as you know, if they rush you in. . . that is sooooo not good.

At 1:00am we finally got to see the doctor who was very nice, very professional and apologetic for our long wait. She said they had seven major pediatric traumas which is highly unusual. She evaluated Nick whose fever had come back because the Tylenol had worn off. She said that we could run a couple of tests. One of those tests was a urine test administered via catheter. You know what comes next? Positive. The damned test was positive for a urinary tract infection.

The doctor said the exact same thing I heard when Lucas had a UTI. "Urinary tract infections in little boys are really unusual." Unusual. That is apparently the word used for boys with UTI's. Have AJ and I genetically doomed our children to abnormalities favoring UTI's? WHAT IS THE STORY??

We have our long awaited appointment for Nick with the Pediatric Urologist the end of march. I guess we will also be discussing this UTI.

Now that I'm thinking back I think this has going on all month and actually nearly 2 months. And in true Mommy fashion I feel guilty for not doing/seeing something earlier. I mean you would think that if I went through this already with Lucas that I would see all the signs . . . but I just wasn't looking. I assumed that the odds of having TWO kids with UTI problems is so far fetched that I didn't even consider it. And I feel terrible.