Continued from 3/19/08 (the joys of vaccinations)

Sorry to leave y’all hanging on that last one. Bottom line, Maia is fine. We went to the pediatrician and as predicted, she had no idea what the red spots were or what was causing the fever. Of course she said it wasn’t related to the vaccines—it was just a coincidence that it showed up around the same time. Anyway, she was concerned enough to order a full blood work-up STAT. This meant we had to drive to Oakland’s Children’s Hospital to get a speedy turnaround on the results. At this point it’s almost noon and we’re all hungry, Maia still has a fever, and we don’t know what to think.

We decided we couldn’t deal with the hospital on empty stomachs so we picked up some sandwiches on the way to Oakland. We were completely stressed out. As a parent you know you have to be calm and at least pretend you know everything will be all right, but I must say, I wasn’t doing a very good job at that. Keana was of course pushing the limits on everything, knowing something was going on and that we weren’t on top of our game, and Maia continued to cry and cry. It was total chaos for a while there.

We finished wolfing our sandwiches down just as we pulled into our parking spot in the garage across the street from the hospital. I grabbed Maia in her car seat, Keana followed Sarah, and we crossed the street and entered the waiting room. We then put our names on the list and proceeded to wait. Immediately I noticed all the kids in the waiting room coughing and sneezing and with red bumps all over their arms and my skin began to crawl. “Just perfect,” I thought, “this is exactly where our kids need to be right now. SHIT!!!” Again, not the calmest parent there.

Surprisingly we got in to the lab only after waiting an hour but only one parent could go in. We decided Sarah was the best choice do Keana stayed in the waiting room. I could hear Maia screaming through the door and could only imagine what was going on. After about 10 minutes Sarah and Maia emerged and Sarah began to cry. She said the lab tech couldn’t find a vein so she just stuck the needle in and moved it around until blood started coming out. Then she had to take five files of blood for all the tests. Traumatic. Luckily (hopefully) Maia won’t remember any of this.

By the time we got home our doctor had the results and there was no bacterial infection and therefore nothing to worry about. All we could do is wait it out and use tylenol for the fever. A whole afternoon of trauma just to be told to keep doing what we were doing. Of course it’s better to be safe, err on the side of caution, but man, what a day.