Paging Dr. Kovac

Dave is out of town this week on business. He hasn't traveled in a while so I should have known that the Consulting Wives Gods had been saving something special for me. Georgia came home from school white as a sheet and complained that she was too hot. She gets heat exhaustion easily, so I handed her icewater to cool her off and a bucket, just in case. Of course she hurled. Her reaction to too much heat, stress, excitement is to puke. I can count on her barfing the first day of every trip we take. So when she is sick, I have to figure out if it's "RGV" (random Georgia vomit) or if she has some bug. An hour later when she hurled again, I had my answer.

I put her in the bath and set Millie & Bea outside with finger paints to keep them busy while I dealt with Georgie. She tends to be easy going and not a whiner so I sometimes have to make conscious efforts to attend to her lest she be Jan Bradied in our family. Meanwhile Picasso & Van Gogh had decorated themselves from head to toe with paint of questionable washability. After everone was scrubbed, it dawns on Millie that Georgia is sick and won't be going to school. Enter "Me-Too-Millie," who has to have EVERYTHING just like Georgia. She suddenly complains of a head and stomach ache and I'm ready to toss her out the window when she insists I take her temperature. The thermometer reads 102 and Iwonder how she WILLED herself a fever. I can't tell if Georgia is upset that once again Millie is usurping her moment in the spotlight.

It was a long, long night as Bea, who I think is also trying to be sick to regain her foothold as center of the universe, kept getting out of her "big girl bed" and coming into the room and waking us all up. Every hour she did this until 5 when I put her in her crib/jail and she wailed and wailed. I waited til she was good and miserable before moving her back to the bed and informing her that if she cried or came out of the room, she'd be back in the crib for good. I got to sleep at 6, and got up 45 minutes later to get Jonah off to school. I hate nights like that.

During a Bea respite between 11 and midnite, I watched last week's ER on the tivo. I love that show. I remember watching the pilot (along with Friends) when we were in Tempe. I can't explain why, but the show often makes me cry. When I'm dealing with crap in my life and can't emote or I'll fall apart, they'll have some story line about someone losing a baby or a friend with cancer and out it all comes. A few episodes ago Dr. Kovac took a job at a nursing home and out came my daddy grief.

Today when I woke up, bleary and exhausted, I had a huge headache and really really wished I could take a bed at county general and have Abby Lockheart attend to me. She'd summon Chuney to take my kids to the family area and then she'd tell me to just rest. A nurse would give me two magic pills to make my head stop hurting and then I'd just sleep, knowing, for the moment, I had no responsibilities. If someone barfed, it was not my job to clean it. If someone was hungry, others would take care of it. I had to laugh, that the best I could come up with for an escape fantasy was to be in an illfitting nightgown at an overcrowded hospital. Why not dream of the beach? Or Paris? How sad that I know the most likely escape from a my temporary gloom would be if my body failed me in a non-threatening way!

Everyone is on the mend. I got a small nap. No more body fluids. Just fevers which will keep the girls home tomorrow. Dave gets back on Friday, and with any luck, I can sleep thru the night without the aid of an ER.