Haaaaa……where do I start?

As our story last left off I was relishing the fact that we were all sick, PC was working terrible hours, we were all tired, cranky. Saturday morning rolls around and Mackenzie was roasting like a little turkey, fussy, not sleeping well, woke up at 5am crying. I made the executive decision that since we were leaving in about 36hrs it would be wise to have her seen, just to make sure something wasn’t brewing, something that would, you know, cause a plane to divert because that baby in the back is screaming so loud. There is no Saturday clinic so the ER is our only option. PC was a sweetheart and offered to take her. The checked her out, ears looked fine I also wondered about a bladder infection since a friends daughter had one with very few symptoms.

We drugged her as much as we could with tylenol and motrin, ran errands, planned to have dinner with friends and the day just kept going downhill. Mackenzie didn’t want to nap, she didn’t want to be held, she didn’t want to be put down, she was happiest when she was just screaming or screaming louder. We put her down for the night as early as possible and she kept waking up every 30 minutes or so crying. Still concerned I told PC I didn’t think this was just a virus. She’s had viruses before and she’s never like this. So, at around midnight he took her back again. Her temp was 103 (dear Santa, my piece of shit ear thermometer doesn’t work. I need something better). This time I told them to insist on checking her urine. Poor baby had to endure not one, not two, but three attempts to get a catheter in. PC said it was so awful it brought him to tears watching her go through it. Aaaand, it was negative. So, I felt horrible too. They checked her over again, insisted she was fine, it was just a virus.

Sunday morning rolls around and our flight was at 12:30. We probably left a few too many things to do for the morning and the stress was compounded when PC went to go print his leave papers and the system was down for maintenance. We can’t leave the country without them. So PC has to find an….uh, alternative method for producing his leave papers which really boiled down to a big time suck.We left the house around 9:30 and needed to return some movies. On the way to the shopette PC said “look at your kids.” I turn around and both of them had their heads leaning to the side, thumbs in mouths, looking all matchy matchy. Cute. “Whats all over her ear?” I ask. “Food.” “But she had a muffin and cantaloupe to eat….those don’t have good smear quality.” We get to the shopette and while PC is dropping the movies I go and inspect. Ear goo. Copious amounts of green ear goo flowing from her ear. Damn. Thats just swell. Obviously if anything were really wrong with either of our kids we would have missed the flight or just skipped the whole trip if we had to. No trip is more important than them, but really- after TWO TRIPS to the ER, one of them not more than 7 hours ago you couldn’t see that her eardrum was about to explode? Really?

“We’ve got to go back in.” PC looks at me and asks if I really think her eardrum has ruptured. “She was crying a lot– maybe its just her tears drained in there. Maybe its just wax.” My husband is a brilliant person, but his ability to assess medical situations could use some work. “Wax? Who has green runny ear wax?” “Maybe its just snot draining.” “Out of her EAR? Snot can’t just flow out of any orifice. No its an ear infection.” PC said he was admitting defeat….he had taken her the last two times and I think he was feeling badly that an ear infection this bad was missed. Plus, I told him before we got to the hospital “which one of us has the ability to get things moving quickly if we are going to make this flight…..you-the Captain or me?” Me. I was actually very nice because I knew they would be doing me the favor, I kept my fingers crossed because we had 45 minutes tops if we had any prayer to make the flight. We waited for about 20 minutes. They triaged us, Mackenzie had a total Pavlovian response as soon as she saw that nurse and rectal thermometer, they got us into the exam room and the Corpsman asked the dr. to see us first given our time constraint. The dr. came in, Mackenzie started freaking out again. The doctor attempted to look in her ear and was all, “well….I can’t see anything, I could make you sit here while I clean it out just to confirm that it did rupture, or I can just give you some drops and oral antibiotics and send you on your way.” Yes, we’ll take option B.

The Corpsman was bringing us the discharge paperwork and as Im scribbling my name a fire alarm goes off. The stairway to the second floor pharmacy slams shut and we’re all ushered out of the building due to a “code red.” Whatever that is. We sit in the car for another 10 minutes waiting. I voiced my concern to PC….first it was the leave paperwork. Then it was the ear goo. Now its a fire alarm. If anything anything else goes wrong- we’re just stopping. Its a sign that we weren’t meant to get on this plane.

Well, nothing else did go wrong, we made it to the plane, had a miserable flight down here because someone missed both of their naps which resulted in a system overload. I told PC as she was screaming while we were boarding the flight “she’s going to crash out as soon as she hits her seat….she’s so past tired.” Wrong. Girlfriend screamed for the first hour rubbing the eyes, so tired it was painful to watch. For the remaining 6 hours she cried on and off. We walked with her, we rocked her, we sang to her, we even offered to rope the damn moon for her and she just kept crying. Im sure it was partly because she didn’t feel so great but mostly she was just exhausted….why is it when you reach system overload the “system” doesn’t just power down? Instead it keeps the alarms going.

We arrived in Singapore about 1am our time. Both kids were actually quite pleasant given the hour. We opted for the hotel to send a shuttle for us….at 1am with two tired kids, wait, lets be honest, 3 tired kids (me), the last thing I was prepared to do was fart around trying to figure out how to fit a stroller and two suitcases and backpacks into a small taxi and then have the taxi driver be all “what hotel?” and we’re driving around trying to find a hotel in a strange city at 1am. $70 well spent.

We get to the hotel and check into our room. We opted for one of the newer nicer rooms, but was told there was no room for a rollaway. We went and checked it out anyway, Nathan enjoyed watching TV in the bathroom, we ripped into the complimentary mini-bar (I know!), and PC rearranged some funiture and told the front desk he was sure we could fit a roll away. The guy on duty insisted we couldn’t, I didn’t care that much so we got one of the older “club level” rooms which….I don’t know, bigger is all relative. If its bigger its not much bigger. And its definitely not as nice or as clean. But, as we were approaching 3am I stopped caring. PC called the bellman to come get our luggage again, I took Mackenzie back downstairs to get our new keys and had to wait while the one guy on duty was arguing with a prostitute and ushering her out of the hotel. Dudes….I just need my keys. Me and my greasy haired, stains all-over-her-shirt, green-goo eared daughter want our keys and want to go to bed.

So, that was our first night. Today everyone is exhausted. Mackenzie has been a terrible sleeper and it makes me vacillate greatly between “Gesus this just isn’t worth it” and “its not that bad, you are in SINGAPORE for crying out loud. Deal.”

We’ve strolled around today and what we’ve seen is beautiful. Everything is so clean, its decorated beautifully for Christmas. Forget Rockafeller Center– Orchard Road is just as good. Lunch today was at one of the Hawker centers and it did not disappoint. So, hopefully things will look up from here, we’ll all get a good nights sleep and tomorrow will be a much better day.

Filed under: McSassy, Travel