Thursday, February 01, 2007

Disaster Narrowly Averted

Or avoided by a mile. My son had been throwing up in the morning, just once, and then going on like nothing happened. I thought it was strange, but didn’t think much of it. This went on for three days when my wife, the neuro nurse, mentioned that morning vomiting was a symptom of brain tumors. I panicked, and dashed to get the pediatrician on the phone.

Meanwhile, pandemonium has broken out in my city. As you probably know, a little bit too creative ad for a cartoon caused the city to come to a standstill because the authorities thought they were bombs. Normally, this would create a dramatic reaction from me. I am one of those people who have a disaster kit in their basement, though it’s unclear to me what the duct tape is for. After 911 I tried to get my doctor to prescribe antibiotics for me. I wanted them on hand in case there was a bio terror attack. She refused.

But I completely missed the chaos yesterday because I was trying to get the nice nurse at the pediatrician’s office to take my son’s situation seriously. I wanted a CAT scan. She thought he needed chicken soup. Medical personnel are so unhelpful.

BTW – the vomiting ceased this morning.

2 comments:

Rhea said...

Oh, glad he's OK. I am out of Boston this week on a family emergency, but heard that Boston was shut down due to some weird pseudo-terrorist thing. Anyway, saw you on Blogher today!
Rhea
The Boomer Chronicles
www.thegeminiweb.com

Jessica Gottlieb said...

Clearly your pediatrician doesn't understand just how many brain tumors we've all had.

Hee hee. I've had the same experience.

One day I'll blog about the frightening calm that engulfed me when there really was a chance of us losing Adam.

Really the calm is a terrifying moment.