Thank God for Happy Endings

So today we had a scare with Aunica. Well, to be more accurate, I was more scared than I probably should have been. Greg kept pretty cool. Though he was at home.

Oh, you want an explanation? Okay.

Aunica came down with a 101 degree fever during her naptime today. Fevers are not unusual in this family for the most part, but when Aunica gets them, they are rather mysterious. She is a tough little cookie, as well as non-verbal (for the most part) and so you can't tell if she's just over-heated, sick, getting sick or what. I had noticed her pulling on her ears so I decided it was probably an ear infection.

So, we drove the 40 minutes to Fontana and went to Urgent Care. We got in quickly, which was nice, but then the doctor could find nothing *really* wrong. But then he said the dreaded words:

"I think I'll test her urine"



See, there's this funny thing about being a new parent. There are these things people don't tell you you will become paranoid of: the first time your kid gets sick (not just cold-sick--I mean *sick* to the point if you aren't sure if they are going to be ok) it just about kills you. As you probably already know, Aunica's brother, Sam had urinary issues when he was two weeks old that hospitalized him and traumatized both him and us. He underwent multiple invasive tests which involved needles, catheters, continuous radiating for an hour (not to mention much screaming on Sam's part and weeping on our part)...

It turns out Sam had urinary reflux, a relatively common problem in infants and toddlers--Sam's was a higher grade and he was given a 30% chance of recovering from the reflux on his own--surgery if he didn't. He was on antibiotics for the first 2 1/2 years of his life, but we took them off when we realized he was getting 1/3 the dose he needed (the doctor hadn't updated us on dosage, age and weight so we thought we were doing fine) So far, he has not had another UTI and he is almost 5.

But even though he has been fine, I have thought the beginning of every illness was a sign of something worse--something more drastic, something dangerous and life-threatening. He sneezes and I say, "Are you ok? Do you feel alright?" And I know it is wrong, but I still worry about him because I am caught off guard by my love for him all the time--this completely unrelenting love that won't let me not be devastatingly afraid of things being wrong with him.

So when the doctor said he wanted to test Aunica for a Urinary Tract Infection(because she was otherwise symptom-free), this huge battle between my heart and brain broke out.

My irrational mommy-heart was saying, "No, please God, no. I don't want to go through this again.. not with Aunica, too."

And my brain was saying "Yes, there is and was a 50% chance she would have Sam's defect, too. We knew this was a possiblity."

And then my heart said, "Maybe if she does have a UTI, somehow I could disinfect the urine so they wouldn't be able to tell, and then she won't need further testing."

And then my brain said, "That is just ridiculous. If she has a UTI, she needs TREATMENT, you dolt. You can't just wish it away."

So, we slapped a urine bag on her (yes, it is an adhesive bag that collects urine for testing). Aunica *hated* the thing. I stood in the bathroom at Kaiser for 45 minutes coaxing her to pee into the bag (she's not at all potty trained yet). Finally she did pee and we got to turn it into the lab.

Kaiser is pretty good about getting labs done quickly and the results were in as soon as I got home. Everything was within normal ranges and there were no indications of UTIs whatsoever.

I went and kissed Aunica up and thanked God for making her a-ok and suddenly was starving.

So that's my emotional journey for the day.