One way to spend one's Thursday evening...

...is to spend it in the emergency room at the new Children's Hospital.

Sigh.

The story starts, I guess, thusly:

The OG went out on Halloween last night, suitably overstimulated and bouncing around like the hyperactive little monkey that she is. However, I did notice that her stamina this year was not quite what it was last year - I mean, she really only did two blocks - but I figured it was probably just that she was ready to come back and play Harry Potter with her best buddy Cole.

This morning, she woke up tired...I'm all, "No, shit, dude?" - except that I don't really say "No, shit, dude," I say something motherly instead, like "Um, yes, honey, you stayed up until ten last night, remember?" She complained of her finger hurting; I took a look at it, and didn't see anything, but it was red and kind of swollen. In fact, I noticed, all of his fingers were a little sausage-y, but I chalked that up to candy and the late night. I gave her a band-aid for her finger...I figured she'd gotten a splinter or a little piece of glass in it, or something, and sent her on her way to school.

So, later, the school nurse called me at about 11:00, to tell me that OG has now developed a rash on her legs and arms, and that her hands and feet were swollen up. We chatted a bit about the amoxicillin that she's been on for a week or so due to what I'd presumed was a flare-up of her old, recurrent strep infection. The nurse said that the OG looked, to her, like she was having an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin, and that her doctor should probably take a look at it. OG got on the phone with me and said that she didn't feel well, but I encouraged her to eat a bit of lunch, and she agreed to try.

Hmmmm, says I; OK. I made an appointment with her doctor for right after school, 'cause there didn't seem to be a huge rush, or anything.

When I got to school at 2:45 and found her, she looked TERRIBLE. Her face, which is pretty pale to begin with, is stone white, with that distinctive "high-color" on the cheekbones. When I touched her, she was burning up with fever, and the rash was angrily throbbing. Worse, her hands and toes were PURPLE, and HUGE.

We bustled off to the doctor's office, wherein the OG promptly fell asleep. (No! I'm serious! Yeah, MY DAUGHTER!) The doctor kept us there for quite a while, putting in calls to various infectious disease specialists, and then said - in that inimitable doctor way, "Well, it could be an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin, or it could be just a virus, or it could be a really serious disease like Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever." (Me: "Huuuunhh?) She advised us to hightail it down to the new Children's Hospital Emergency Room.

I shall spare you the details of the Four-And-One-Half-Hours That We Spent There. With no books. Or dinner. And only evening television to placate the cartoon-loving OG. Needless to say, we were hungry and cranky...though I must point out that ONE of us at LEAST had a BED to lie in.

After much, much, MUCH waiting and bloodwork, we determined that yes, indeedy, it is an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin, or a virus, and that, either way, it should clear up in a day or so. Though I was of course glad to hear that, part of me was a little - just a tiny, little bit - like, "Seriously; four and a half hours, and she doesn't even have something exotic?"

We didn't arrive home until 10:00, and clearly the OG is really sick, as I tried to make her (?) feel better by buying a box of warm Mrs. Johnson's Doughnuts on the way home, and she was not even remotely interested. (DAMN, that is an insidious place! I mean, they put an extra doughnut on top of the box when they hand it to you! They are FORCING me to eat one!)

Anyway, pity me, folks...not for having to spend all that time in the ER, but because I NOT ONLY watched "Drake and Josh," and I NOT ONLY watched three episodes of "Courage the Cowardly Dog," but....I watched an ENTIRE EPISODE of "Full House."

I need a glass of wine, now. STAT!
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(Interjection: My favorite conversational interlude from today:

OG: "Where in the HELL is the nurse?"
Me: "Um...where in the HECK is the nurse?"

I have NO idea where she heard that.
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My Four Word Film Review of the "Annual to Semi-Annual E.R. Trip with One of My Children:"

God, PLEASE KILL ME.