First there was a pandemic which closed schools and daycares, and forced parents to be fulltime caregivers while also working full time with no breaks. And if you happened to get sick, you still had to take care of those children while you maybe couldn’t get out of bed yourself.
Then the country reopened almost a year before there were vaccines for little kids to keep them safer.
Then because everyone was sick of precautions and had weakened immune systems from the pandemic, there is a tri-demic of Covid and Flu and RSV going around, all of which is particularly terrifying for small children.
We held our children on our laps while attending zoom calls, we went to prenatal appointments alone, birthed alone, have felt so alone by a country that doesn’t seem to care about small children.
Then came the formula shortage. There’s not much worse than being postpartum and being worried you can’t feed your baby. We didn’t have it that bad, and thankfully we’re done with it now, but this is still very much going on, especially for people with babies on special formulas. I still have not seen a stocked shelf of formula in any store I’ve been in, and it’s been almost a year.
Then came the kids and infants Tylenol and Motrin shortage. It only made sense it would happen with so many kids sick, but what doesn’t make sense is that no one is doing anything about it. Instead parents of sick kids are begging everyone they know to help them find it.
And then comes our day today.
Yesterday G wasn’t feeling well. He had a fever (luckily I did have some Tylenol on hand) and was complaining his throat hurt (although if you tried to ask him about it, he’d claim it was fine, nothing hurt and he was all better!). In general he just didn’t look well, and spent most of the day on the couch. I had Tom call the pediatrician to ask for a sick visit. First we called the on call line because the office wasn’t open. We hoped we could get an early appointment. They never called us back.
Then we called the office when it was open. They said no to a sick visit, and told us to run a humidifier. After waiting almost 45 minutes on hold to talk to a nurse and try to beg to be seen, we hung up. Tom and I tried to convince ourselves he just had a virus and we’d treat it at home.
Still I went to bed with a nagging feeling. That thought it the back of my mind that wouldn’t go away. For some reason I thought it might be strep throat. All I could think about was the last time I thought one of my children had strep throat and I got a similar brush off from the pediatrician (because kids under 3 don’t usually get strep throat, and he was only 2 at the time). In the end him and I both ended up having Strep and came down with Scarlett Fever after because it went untreated for so long.
But we went to bed, and I tried to ignore the thought.
Until we woke up from panicked screaming because he’d thrown up. We got up, we changed the sheets, changed him, and got everyone back to bed. And then my mind wouldn’t let go of the thought. I didn’t think he had a stomach bug. But little kids do throw up randomly with strep throat. I made Tom get out his phone in the middle of the night and schedule a pharmacy visit for G, because they’d see him.
So today I left the house at 3:00 to get everyone where they needed to be - F home with Tom and Elliot and G with me to head to CVS. We got to the appointment and were told things were running behind. I felt like maybe I was overreacting dragging him there, but still we waited. When we finally saw the NP, I told him it was probably a virus, but I wanted to rule out Strep. Minutes later the machine popped with a positive result.
He also has a cold/upper raspatory virus for what it’s worth, but somehow my nagging thought was right.
But then we found out that there is also a national shortage of children’s penicillin. Of course it makes sense because everyone is sick right now, but it was just another thing being thrown at us. The pharmacy we were at didn’t have any, and they were calling around to every one in town and neighboring towns trying to find us some.
Luckily they found us some in Woburn, and we raced there to grab it, as it was almost bedtime. I’d left the house almost 3 hours earlier and desperately needed to pee. G kept chanting “Mama’s gonna have a car accident!” as I drove - not because he thought I’d crash the car, but because he gleefully thought I might pee my pants.
The children are in bed, and I’ve only been called up about ten times in the past hour for water or tears or another dose of Tylenol because G’s throat still hurts, but hopefully that will at least be resolved in the next 24 hours. Oh and one of those times I was called up was because I didn’t put a nighttime pull-up on quite right and it leaked all over pjs and the bed. So I had to change the sheets and pjs for a second night in a row!
Also did I mention that all of the brackets holding up every single shelf in our hall closet ripped themselves out of the wall today? And all 6 of those shelves came crashing down to the ground with everything on them?
I’m going to bed.
