An Eventful and Memorable Weekend

I'm exhausted. We all are. Good thing life goes on no matter what and this, too, shall pass.

We had it all planned out: we had friends coming up from Seattle and friends visiting all the way from Taiwan. It was a perfect opportunity for all of us to get together in our big new place. We were having a Bill's birthday/Father's Day/Reunion/House-Warming party on Saturday. We planned to take our house guests to "Car-Free Day on Main" on Sunday. Then after they went back to Seattle, the three of us were going to take a little family trip to Sunshine Coast. I had a bit of cold since Thursday, but I didn't care. I wasn't gonna let a few sniffles stop me.

Well, on Friday, Bill said instead of going to Sunshine Coast, maybe each of us could take a personal day and the other person could watch Kai. No family trip. Then the weather forecast called for rain all day Saturday -- the day of the BBQ. A few hours before Bill was going to the train station to pick up our first house guest, we were frantically getting the house ready. Then Bill went out to pick up the house guest. The train was delayed, so they came home later than expected. At 2 in the morning, we discovered that Kai was burning hot as a furnace.

Nothing a little children's Tylenol and a good night sleep can't fix, so we thought.

Saturday morning we woke up to the depressing non-stop-drilling Pacific Northwest rain, and we noticed the red spots on Kai's tummy. Called the Health Line and the nurse suggested that we wait and observe him further. We spent the day (still) getting the house ready. We were cutting it so close I didn't even have a chance to change my clothes before the guests arrived (ssshhhhh...). The BBQ, I must say, was a success! Everyone had fun and the food was great. The only person that was "out of character" was Kai. His rash spread to his legs and his fever spiked. He so wanted to play with Edie and Jordy, but he simply did not have the energy to do so.

After the BBQ was put away in the garage and leftover food in the fridge, I took Kai to bed. Bill and a few friends stayed up to play a board game in the basement until shortly after midnight. When he came into the bedroom, we noticed Kai's fever was at 40.1C and his rash was spreading to his back and arms. We spent a few minutes looking things up on the Internet, but everything we read sounded serious and scary. At 12:30, we decided to to go the ER. Then began a long difficult night for all three of us.

Long story short, the doctors and nurses poked and prod Kai throughout the seven hours that we were there for different tests. The nurse who came to draw blood couldn't find a vein, and I tell ya, regular swear words just weren't enough to express how I felt as I watched how incompetent she was. Bill said he felt me pulling Kai's legs toward me as if I was going to, at any moment, snatch Kai away from this torturous process. Then since she couldn't get enough blood for two tests, she had to get some from a finger tip. I couldn't see exactly what she was doing, but it felt like she was slashing Kai's flesh open repeatedly. How could getting a bit of blood from a finger tip take as long as it did?!?! So frustrating!

For the urine test, they first put a bag around Kai's penis to collect urine. Might have felt a bit weird, but nothing to it. Then they came back saying that they needed "clean" (uncontaminated) urine, so someone was coming to... (get ready for this): INSERT A CATHETER INTO KAI'S PENIS TO COLLECT URINE DIRECTLY FROM HIS BLADDER. Bill was in the bathroom when the intern came in to tell me what they were planning to do, and I gotta say, I felt dizzy while listening to her explain how the procedure was done. "Are you gonna apply local anesthesia?" I muttered. "Oh, I'm sure the nurse will put some numbing gel on the catheter, so it'll freeze the nerves as it goes into your son's penis," the intern answered a little too cheerfully. My stomach tightened, and I wanted to punch her right in the nose. I even visualized it. Oh, I did and it made me feel better.

Turned out, Kai is a person with a lot more courage and grace than his mother. Despite all the torture he experienced in one night, he managed to say "Thank you" and "Bye-bye" to the nurses and doctors as we were (finally) leaving the ER. I couldn't even look at their faces without reliving the uncomfortable moments Kai had to go through that night.