What a Day

Today seemed to be starting normally; woke up, got out of bed, (ran a comb across my head, too, but that was after a shower), made my way into work. The kids had been with their Dad the night before, so I was a little later than normal, but nothing major. Then, about 9:30, when I was in the midst of helping another group test something with the potential to crash servers (in production, no less) I got a call from Peter.

P: "Mom, I can't really see."
M: "What do you mean I can't really see?"
P: "I can see shapes and colors, but nothing else"
M: "How long has this been going on?!?!" (mild panic setting in at this point)
P: "Since I woke up. It's not getting better"

So, I get off the phone, and call the pediatrician, and get an appointment for 11:30. I hang around the office long enough to tell my boss where I'm going, pick up Peter (dropping off the banana bread I made earlier), and get to the doctor's office. Amazingly, we were about 10 or 15 minutes early, so we checked in, sat down, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Now, patience is something I have to really work on; I can be patient, but not in a vacuum. And I was getting NO info from the front desk.

Finally, more than 30 minutes after my scheduled appt, we were called back, by a nurse who also had no information (and less personality). I get the feeling she's new and VERY untrained, because she had NO people skills (bad thing in a pediatric nurse) and didn't seem to be triaging the patients for the doctor.

Anyway, eventually we saw the doctor zooming around. She stuck her head in, was very nice, let us know where we were in line, made sure we didn't need to be seen sooner, and basically made me happy. Then left again for another hour or so....

...but eventually came back and could look at Peter's eyes. She didn't see anything, he just couldn't see. But everything was normal. She tried calling an ophthalmologist, but they were all at lunch, so she sent us home to keep an eye on him.

So, we ran home. He ate his lunch in the car, and I scarfed down some soup once we got home. Then about 2:30 the pediatrician called; she was able to get us into the ophthalmologist that afternoon. So, off we scooted, and spent another hour and a half or so there. Poor Peter was getting poked, proded, dilated, numbed and anything else they could think of to do to him. Plus, because he could do things like walk without running into things, everyone kept asking him if there was anything wrong at school, and didn't seem inclined to believe him when he said "No".

Finally, after way too much time in examining rooms, they decided this was probably a migraine without the pain, in which case it would go away in a day or two, or some weird thing that happens to kids sometimes, in which case it would go away within a week or two.

So, we headed home. By now Peter was tired, frustrated, and bored out of his mind. Couldn't read. Couldn't play DS or computer games. Couldn't play outside. Mom yelled at him after he asked to play outside for the millionth time. Then, to top it all off, Grace ate the last Chocolate Fudge Pop Tart!

Poor boy. Luckily Granddaddy was there to take G to basketball practice, and agreed to buy new Pop Tarts (which, of course, turned into Pop Tarts, Swiss Cake Rolls, and Donuts....)!