May 04, 2007

Getting Over

Justice Ny loves my "stories" so maybe she can find some humor in my week from hell. Here's what happened.


Sunday evening, I notice these strange little bumps on Little Brother ("B"). Is it a heat rash from the fever he had been fighting the past few nights? Who knows. But I could not explain it. Well, Monday morning, B wakes up and he is covered in red dots all over his body. I'm a bit scared because it looks scary. Hubby says to take him to the Emergency room, but he's acting normal so I say wait. I call the pediatrician instead. Hubby leaves for work and take Oldest to school. I start rushing to try to get Daughter to day care so that I can take B to the doc's office and be there as soon as their doors open at 9 am.

B goes down for his usual nap, around 8:30, and I quickly get dressed, get Daughter dressed, hair decent, etc., and run outside and load Daughter in the car. Let me just say that I never advocate leaving kids in a car, running or not, and I never do it. But typically my car is in my garage and I load my kids one by one in our safe, secure and cool garage. But this time it was in the driveway and it was already warm outside. So I did it even though as I did it I knew it was wrong. I turn the car on so that she can stay nice and cool. Well the car is a loaner car that I have been driving for over a week while the dealership worked on trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with my car (some sort of electrical problem). I run back in the house, get "B" from his crib, run back out and the car DOORS ARE LOCKED. YIKES.

Now, remember, it's a loaner car. So there's no calling Hubby for a spare key. Thank God because I could hear it now. I panic even more because although I turned the car on, I remembered I never actually checked to see if the air was on. NOT GOOD. Thankfully, the air was on, but it was on low. I call the dealership, I tell them to get someone there in 10 minutes otherwise I was going to break the window.

Daughter remains calm, and we start to play peek-a-boo while I tried to act like she wasn't locked in the car that was sitting in the sun. Thankfully, she looked comfortable. But my heart was racing. B is looking worse by the minute and was not at all happy about having his nap cut short. Someone arrives 12 minutes later. (We live close, THANK GOD). And I stay far back because I do not want him to see B and run for cover because it really did look bad.

When I finally make it to day care, I have the Director come to the car and grab Daughter for fear of reactions and spreading whatever has taken over his body to others. Director claims it's the measles and states she's only seen it one time in the last 5 years, after of course she makes a face and says "Wow." Nice. So I call Hubby, give him the report and he panics, and says he'll meet me at the doc's office.

Finally, we get to the doc's office. The nurse who checks us in yelps when she sees B. Nice. After waiting almost an hour, we learn B has the measles vaccine rash. And that it would get worse before it got better and that only 5% of kids actually even get the rash from the vaccine. And, we also learn that B had strep throat. My poor baby!!! I was heartbroken for him and also thinking about all the papers I had to grade starting that day. Then I'm mad at myself for thinking about the papers.

Anyhow, I didn't think it was possible for it to get worse but it did. It was worse by the time we got to the doctor and worse by noon. And worse yet the next day. Hubby took the kids to his parent's house to quarantine them from the rash and strep.


So that was Monday through Wednesday. No papers were graded, nothing was done. B was not in a terrible mood but he wasn't happy. I showered him with love.


Thursday, B is well enough to go to school. Rash has faded significantly, strep was being treated, he was not contagious and doc says it's okay for him to return to day care. Now, I'm still in the loaner car, even though I have been getting a call every day for the past 7 days from the dealer telling me that they were still working on finding what was causing the problems in my car and that they were sure it would be resolved "the next day."

This is where J. Ny will start laughing. On day 6, the gas light came on so I put $6.00 of gas in a car that takes about $70 to fill up. Because I was in the loaner car, my cheap butt did not want to put any gas in their car. STUPID. The $6.00 dollars did not actually do much and the light didn't even turn off. DUMB. Nevermind the fact that when I got the car, it was completely full. I thought I would get over. IDIOT. I stay home on day 7 so no gas needed. On day 8, yesterday, I got the call to come pick up my car. The light was still on and I knew I had to put some gas in it but I was rushing from place to place, (as always). Finally, by the afternoon, I pick up Oldest from school and tell him the first thing we're doing is getting gas. I missed my darn turn to get gas and I start to panic because the next gas station was across this big bridge.









It's pretty darn big isn't? (Note: the bridge is under going major construction. It was 4 pm, and traffic was getting heavy.) I am forced to enter the highway that leads to the bridge and I just know, I'm done. Well, right at the right edge of the picture is where my car dies. I am totally blocking one of the two lanes with my big a@@ SUV. One jack a@@ with his shirt off and a pick up has the nerve to stop right next to me and laugh and shake his fingers at me. By now Oldest is crying because he thinks the police, that's parked all over the bridge, are going to take us to jail. I'm screwed. Finally, a police officer pulls up behind me and is very angry that I'm blocking traffic. When I tell him what happened, he is outraged. JERK!
Another cop pulls up and asks me if I can call someone to bring me gas. Hubby of course. But I am always getting on Hubby for driving around with low gas. So I call him with a sick feeling and of course, he doesn't pick up. Call him three more times, still no pick up. It's his gym time, he always has his phone in his locker and I always am on him about that. I'm outraged.

Then I see a HELICOPTER. The news station, because yesterday was the first day that the bridge was back open in a few days. Nice. I'm trying to hide.

The Jerk came back, and pushed my truck with his car into the construction lane. Scratches and dents the back of the loaner in the process. Fifteen minutes later, the tow truck comes and towes me over the bridge, to the gas station I was hoping to make it to, and charges me $65.00- for less than a mile. I make it to the dealer by 5:15, make to day care by 5:45. Home by 6pm.

So let's do the math:
Gas: $6
Tow truck: $65.00
Migraines: at least 3
Sleepless nights: 5-7
Fight with Hubby for not answering his phone when I was stuck on the Bridge: 1
Dented truck that's not even mine: 1
Papers graded: 0

A week with B all by ourselves, priceless.

Happy Friday Everyone!

10 comments:

Justice Fergie said...

No way! You poor thing. What's the name of that movie? "Justice Jones' Unfortunate Series of Events"? Just think - one day you'll look back at this week and laugh. Maybe :)

I SO have a story like this, but it was just too draining to post so it's still in our "drafts" folder and I feel your pain!

So glad Little B is ok. And, um, were you on the news???

Big Mama said...

That may be the worst compilation of events I have ever heard of. I hope you're somewhere right now drinking a glass of wine to drown those memories.

Mrs. Schmitty said...

Wow that just sounded like the most hellish week. I hope B. is feeling better, poor baby!! I'm glad you got to pamper him though. I hope next week is better!

www.JusticeJonesie.com/blog said...

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the well wishes. I'm (trying) to look at the bright side. Usually when you go through a series of bad episodes, it's because God has something great in store for you. So, it's all good.

B is doing much better. Still some traces of the rash but only if you look really close, with a Mama's eye.

I spent the entire weekend grading and right now, I'm only one paper behind. I should be back on schedule today. My goal is to be ahead of schedule today. Let's hope!

lawbrat said...

I can't imagine all that in such a short time span. My goodness!

I am notorious for running out of gas. I have to be very careful. There was a 2 week period that I ran out of gas about 5-6 times. It was a 'new' car to me- caprice classic- BIG! and the gas gauge did not work so well. It would be empty at 1/4 tank and it took me a bit to figure it out.

I should be able to figure these things out, with being intelligent enough to be in law school and raise kids. Geesh.

I'm so glad B is doing better. It's so scary when a child is sick, even more so with measles and strep. Poor kid.

Justice Ny said...

Believe it or not...I was not falling off my chair with laughter. As I read your post I was concerned...poor Little B - he's such a trooper. Thank God it was not full fledged measles.

Now, I continued reading and saw the image of the long a@@ bridge and I was actually panicking for you. I knew where the story was headed. My goodness, I can't believe the odds...and, I want to know whether you were in fact on the news (but that's not germane to the story).

I must say that this was in fact...the week from hell. It can only get better J. Jones, it can only get better.

Angel said...

Holy crap!! Ok, any bad day I have ever had is nothing compared to this. I am so sorry and I feel for you. We have all been there, but you might win the suckiest sucky day award! LOL!

www.JusticeJonesie.com/blog said...

I don't know if I was on the news or not, I'm sure I was the "stalled vehicle going East on [big a@s] bridge" during the rush hour traffic report.

Wow, an award winner. I guess that's good.

"First and foremost, I would like to thank Hubby for always being so reliable. Also, the tow truck driver, who threatened to take me back to the bridge after I told him $65.00 was robbery for less than a mile, especially when I could have called my road side assistance- for FREE." Last but not least, B, who always has a good sense of humor about being the Little B. Even when Daughter steps on his head for taking her dollys."

Justice Fergie said...

I'm loving the acceptance speech, Jones!

Mommy Dearest said...

You should have bought a lottery ticket! Seriously.

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