Sick Calling It as I See It

Sigh. It is SO hard keeping Hick alive.

First, there's that time-consuming business of telling him to breathe in, breathe out. Then I have to police his food consumption to stop his ingestion of expired items. And warn him to never, ever, run alongside his moving tractor and try to jump on again when he knocks it into gear from the ground. Friday he stayed home sick, and I insisted he make an appointment to see the doctor. Now he has a FAT RED INDEX FINGER. I've sent him off to Urgent Care, the wicked stepmother of that always-closed Convenient Care.

Hick was gone three days to Florida last week while I was getting over a cold. Let the record show that he was in good health when he departed early Sunday morning. He returned Tuesday night. And woke up Wednesday morning with a cough and congestion. As much as he wants to point the blamey finger at me, I call shenanigans. Even the all-powerful Val cannot infect someone so that full-blown symptoms show up within eight hours. Especially since I was finally on the mend. My days of contagion had done passed, by cracky! I figured it was some virus he picked up in Florida, or from the airplane air.

Friday morning I told wheezy Hick he didn't have to put on the sickly act for me, and that he should get himself a diagnosis and/or medicine. He did not sound good. He sounded almost bad enough for me to give him sympathy and wait on him hand and foot. However...he could only see the nurse practitioner at his doctor's office (because doctors only see well people on their six-month check-up visits, you know, and can't be bothered with worked-in sick people). That NP listened to Hick's lungs, told him there was basically nothing wrong with him, and to take TWO ibuprofens every 4-6 hours! Last time I checked, ibuprofen had been ruled not really very good for folks with high blood pressure. Flash forward to this morning, and Hick's cough had not improved. He was still running a fever.

The fever business was kind of hard to confirm. First Hick complained of feeling hot. He wanted me to test his forehead. Yes, it felt hot. He got the thermometer. He said that earlier, it had showed that he was normal. I let that huge softball float right past me into the catcher's mitt. Genius had already hit one out of the park on Friday night, when Hick emailed him that something was wrong with his Facebook page. "I can't find friends." I turned to look at Hick over my shoulder, and caught him putting the thermometer in his armpit. WITH THE T-SHIRT FABRIC ON EACH SIDE. Seriously? What is he, an infant? A t-shirt-wearing infant? I suppose we're lucky that Hick did not try the backdoor route. Once under his tongue, the thermometer showed about a degree of fever. Enough to be sent home from school. I made him promise to try to see the actual DOCTOR on Monday. Because he's not getting better if he has a fever five days after coming down with a cold.

The FAT RED INDEX FINGER was discovered by accident on my part. Hick has arisen from twelve hours of sleep and gone straight to the couch to lay down. He was fiddling with that finger when he said, "I think I have some kind of infection in my finger." I could see it from across the room. The fingertip joint had a protrusion that was bulbous and red. Like a W.C. Fields nose on Hick's finger. I asked if it started around his fingernail. Yep. There's a name for that. Paronychia. And it might have progressed to a felon. That's right! Hick may or may not be harboring a felon in his fingertip! Don't search for pictures. I warned you. That's what my mom had with her FAT RED PINKY FINGER. It took her three months to get over it, which was done by a bone-scraping surgery, not the lopping off that an osteopath recommended. Hick is not talking out of his head yet like Mom was just before her diagnosis. But with his diabetes, I'm thinking he probably needs to get right on some treatment for that infection. He reported that he had it in his other hand a couple of weeks ago. Which kind of points to an infection that was coiled in his bloodstream, ready to strike.

So...Hick and Genius have gone off to Urgent Care, with plans to visit Goodwill if Urgent Care is closed. It made sense to them, anyway.

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HEY! SET YOUR DVR FOR GOOD MORNING AMERICA TOMORROW (MONDAY, MARCH 18) BECAUSE MOMMY-X IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE HER TELEVISION DEBUT!

Sorry to shout. But now I'll have a brush with greatness story. Oh, sure, I want you all to see Mommy Needs a Xanax on TV. But really, it's all about giving me a name to drop. Because I knew her before she was famous. And I was even nice to her then!