I attempted to quote the line from that “no good, terrible day” book but couldn’t remember it…actually I do remember thinking to myself even as I read that book to my older children, “dude…you have no idea”…so I decided this title summed it up quite nicely. Plus it saves me saying it later…
No one expected it to be awesome…we were headed to the clinic for kids’ physicals…having been told that in order to do the TB testing, they “draw the blood.” Great. But I truly didn’t expect the inmates to turn on their captors to the degree that I would continue to ask myself…through gritted teeth or tears…”what are we doing here…period?”
Our new guide is fantastic, just like our first, making us confident that she’s handling us with care. Everyone continues to be concerned about Zoe…which is great…but they can’t seem to grasp that we are, indeed, taking her home. She cannot get treated here…so why would we continue to postpone the inevitable? We also keep getting messages from our agency that bounce back and forth between different ideas/plans non-stop. All of these adjustments to the schedule are necessary and beneficial, but they are charging us an arm and a leg to make these changes that they so miraculously are able to do. In other words, her condition was critical before we ever left the states, but we were told our travel plans were the absolute fastest possible. Now for a nominal fee to CHANGE our schedule, a faster solution presents itself…and some of the things aren’t changeable (agency won’t refund, in other words) so we’ve had to just buy all new plane tickets. As a matter of fact, we just received word that the second set of new tickets would have to be changed again because they didn’t have confirmation with the consulate before having us purchase…and now it won’t work. Why I oughtta….where are the 3 Stooges when you need ‘em?
Ok…getting back to the doctor’s office…
It wasn’t actually going too bad at first…Zane seems to have some ear canal/drum thing happening on his “nub” side…I thought it was just skin tags to a vast degree. We will have to wait and see what’s really going on when we have him see his specialist back home. Zoe took all the examinations…every kid had multiple…like a pro. She seems to be very familiar when the process. Of course, her exam took quite a bit longer than his…so once again, Daddy was chasing Zane all over the clinic. Funny how it’s not so funny anymore…
And then, while we waited for the final step…the TB blood draw…a switch flipped inside Zoe…she went postal. Please don't assume that she knew what was coming…she didn’t. She was sitting on my lap as I tightened her ponytail, and she just shoved my hand away, ripped out her ponytail, and just started screaming at me. No tears…angry, irrational screaming. I sat in shock, trying to calm her down, while the doctor, the guide, the nurse, everyone tried to figure out what she wanted…remember I’m the only one that doesn’t speak her language…no one had a clue. Also remember that this little girl has such a critical heart condition that the common cold could send her body into cardiac arrest…and now she’s turning purple on my lap. She decided she wanted to leave and since I wasn’t letting her, she told me what she thought. The guide finally gave her a yogurt to hold…to hold, mind you…not eat, and she stopped just like that. She literally threw a temper tantrum right on my lap…0-60 in 5 seconds. I’ve never seen anything like it…and I can’t afford to let her scream it out…even half-heartedly. My sanity began breaking down at that moment.
At the same time, Zane was told by Daddy that he could not, in fact, continue to play in the water fountain, throwing water all over the office and dousing himself in the process. Insert meltdown #2. Dude, sorry, but you can cry…with our full blessing…and so he did.
The taking of the blood proved difficult for Zoe…not in her reaction (acted like nothing was going on with the exception of some moaning a bit)…but in the process. They wanted to check her heart rate and oxygen level before they’d do anything but obviously couldn’t get anything to work on her. Their faces said it all…and the 15 nurses in the room. They hooked her up to oxygen, just in case, and proceeded to draw. It was going fine until they couldn’t get any more blood to come…then they had to search for it. I just kept her eyes covered and kept saying in Chinese, “Mommy loves you ChaCha.” She said sat there holding her yogurt…all the while Zane was wailing in the hall. Incidentally the O2 level they were concerned about was 88 pre-draw and 82 post. I was elated because when we started this process last year, her level was at 70. Maybe G*d is choosing to heal in his timing…you just never know!
Zane was horrified at his blood being drawn…take the water fountain deprivation and multiply times a million. Yep.
Beam me up, Scotty.
When we finally got out to the car, Zoe kept wanting that da-gum yogurt opened. Again, trying to keep the peace, I opened it and helped her sip some. It was liquid, which I thought odd…and had come from the guide’s purse…but it seemed to be a Chinese thing. Everywhere you look, you see yogurt just sitting out…not cold. Anyway, I hate yogurt…hate…so I thought it smelled sour, but I think all yogurt smells sour. ANYWAY, I let her drink some, and she seemed content finally.
We went to McDonald’s for lunch, got the kids their first happy meal with nuggets, fries, milk, and a toy! They were stoked…as were we to be eating a cheeseburger. I’ve never, ever been glad to see a McDonald’s cheeseburger…today it was like steak. We took a picture…of course…and then got the kiddos situated with their milk boxes and straws. I had not taken one bite…thankfully…when Zoe projectile vomited…I guess it was more like a gushing waterfall…of puke…over and over again. I don’t do puke because my gag reflex is extreme…zip it, all you nay-sayers talking about how I had 4 kids and all...they learned to wipe themselves all the way to the shower. So here I am…catching it in my hands, trying to grab the happy meal bag for it…only to have the bag, made out of steel, bust through. It was intense…for the puke-catcher…the puker seemed fine. To top it off, she wanted her food back immediately following clean-up. I declined at first…but she insisted…remember her temper…so I slid it over…standing firm on not returning the milk…and held my breath. Apparently French fries make the world a better place…and somehow, living in some alternate universe, I squared my shoulders and downed that double cheeseburger, hold the onions.
Yogurt was meant to be refrigerated. Write that down, people.
We crashed the kids into a much-needed nap and decided to let them sleep as long as they wanted after the morning they’d had.
At some point, Chris said, “Do you mind if I go workout?” I was committed to getting caught up with my blogging so I said it was fine. Right.
When the kids woke up, I flew from kid to kid, trying to be both parents…it went smashingly well. Everyone seemed to be blocking out the morning mayhem…which was just fine by me. Zoe (she wouldn’t allow Zane to get close enough to join her) was watching the Barney episode…I said “the” episode because we only downloaded one…even better. What’s worse…Barney…or the same Barney episode over and over? Yea. When she grew tired of it, she crawled over to me and sat down. Shortly after, Zane climbed onto the bed and put the ipad on his lap to watch it. She wasn’t too happy to share and just jerked it out of his hands. When I told her not to do that and slid it back on his lap, she was furious. I was seriously using my Mary Poppins voice and demeanor…trying to get her to leave him alone and be kind…didn’t matter…she wasn’t having it. WWIII. I got up with her and walked away, trying to sooth out this little “bump in the road”…but she was purple…again. I even offered her my jar of peanut butter to hold…talk about a peace offering…no dice. The whole time Zane is offering to share…she’s not having any of that either. So…sang it out…again.
Daddy got a good workout in. The enemy began to plant the bitterness seed.
At dinner, Zane didn’t like Daddy coming near the food that was in front of him, so he spit in his face and threw his spoon down. We calmly…no joke…moved him to a different chair away from the food, explaining (through motions, mostly) that was not acceptable. Meltdown. Again. I think the count is at 5. Eventually, he allowed me to bring him back over to continue eating…no more spitting or throwing. Probably too soon to celebrate.
Afterward, Zoe got angry when I said we were done walking back and forth to the mirror…I lost count around 20…she wasn’t pleased. Daddy had to take over before this Mommy lost whatever grip on reality she had…although clearly feeble.
Remember how we let the kids sleep until they woke up from nap? Big mistake. They were basically yelling at each other back and forth while I said “shhhh” from my prone position. Bonus: hearing Chris tell Kenney over facetime that everything’s going great. I wanted to punch a wall.
SO…yea…Thursday went well.
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