This has nothing to do with writing. I’m writing, but I’ve been doing more searching on Dr. Goolge than I care to.
If you’ve had sick kids, you, too, have experienced this doctor. Something happens with your kid, and off to the interwebz you go. When you do this for yourself, you are dying. It doesn’t matter what you search for, or what site you end up on – you. Are. Dying.
And then you say to yourself, ‘Pshaw, self! You’re not dying!’ and swoop the mouse to some other site not medically related.
However.
When it’s your kid(s), that’s a whole different ball of wax, as they say. No one wants to take chances with your kids. You know how much suffering you’re willing to put up with before you drag yourself (or your spouse nags and dying en route seems less torturous) to the local urgent care to see just what medical oddity is claiming your very soul.
You don’t know that limit with your kids. And Dr. Google knows this.
I am not going to lie, shameful though it might be. I have googled some things going on with my kids that looked, for all intents and purposes, like meningitis. Twice. The hospital didn’t think I was far off the mark – they tested for it. Having been there twice in one year has caused some extended conversation about it, so I have a better idea of how extreme symptoms have to be.
It’s easy when the kid is gushing blood from some sort of head wound. That’s happened twice, too. But when nothing is really wrong, and there are a litany of symptoms that equal a sick and miserable kid, and they are crying quietly, well….Dr. Google doesn’t look as bad.
Even though he is.
Tonight, it’s not one of our usual suspects. Tonight, it’s mosquito/bug bites gone wild. I have a child that has the worst reactions to being bitten. No bites have been the same in their reactions, but they all react. I guess that’s a similarity.
He got a bite of some sort on his forehead. We checked it out last night, and it was calm. Same with today. Not much itching, or fussing about wanting to scratch. Then I look over at him during dinner, and holy Joseph.
The kid has an egg on his forehead. Well, half an egg. I poke gently at his forehead (my kids are used to this, so he doesn’t even blink an eye) and it’s…squishy.
What in the name of weirdness is this? Oh Dr. Gooooogggllee…….
It seems that my kiddo has an infected mosquito bite. The symptoms match exactly (so that MUST be it!). We iced it tonight, and the swelling did go down some. He reports no pain or discomfort, so we’re letting him go to sleep and then if it’s still half an egg status tomorrow, off to the urgent care we go.
Well, at least it’s not meningitis.