This blog is interested in the defeat of tyrants, who/whatever they may be. This often lends itself to political discussions. But, I think it’s important for all of us to realize that the worst tyrant of all is ignorance. Please permit me a moment of reflection.
This week my three year old little girl got very sick. The whole family was recovering from a seemingly never-ending upper respiratory illness. It’s been going on for almost two weeks with each of us spiking fevers at different times and working toward recovery. Nothing much has gotten done in my house lately. I wasn’t surprised when my little Chloe started fevering again last Saturday. We waited and watched. She didn’t seem to have any other symptoms besides the residual cough and she sometimes coughed herself to the point where she threw up.
I alternated Tylenol and ibuprofen for the fever. She was on a serious roller coaster, because she seemed to recover completely when the medicine kicked in. She stayed home from church on Sunday and I was starting to get seriously worried. On Monday my husband, a resident emergency medicine physician, commented, “It looks like a UTI, you should take her to the pediatrician.” It was the opening I was waiting for. You see, I try to be responsible. I know that there is nothing that anyone can do about the viral infection we’d all been dealing with. I know that irresponsibility with antibiotics is creating resistant strains and I didn’t want to take my daughter to the doctor to be told to go home and wait it out. But, I was afraid, and I was glad to have it legitimized by my husband.
I was able to do a walk-in appointment at my pediatrician. He did the same examination my husband does at home and told me he didn’t see any reason to suspect a bacterial infection. That is to say that the ears, throat and lungs looked good. I knew that. I told him that we suspected a UTI and he asked a whole series of questions like, “Does she have a history of urinary infections?” and “Does she complain about pain when she urinates.” As the questions went on, I began to feel a little dumb because I kept answering “no.”
The doctor said, “Playing the odds here, this is most likely a flu. But, UTI’s are serious and we need to rule it out, so we want to get a urine sample.” Chloe panicked at the idea of peeing in a cup. We gave her water and popsicles and sat in the doctor’s office for over an hour. She cried, refused bribes and stuck her bottom lip out as far as it would go. Finally the doctor gave me the sterile cup and told me that if I could get one, I should bring it back. He suggested I might have more luck if I waited until the next morning. I considered that since she seemed to have so much control over her bladder, it likely wasn’t a UTI anyway.
At home, Chloe stopped pottying all together, despite drinking constantly. She burst into tears whenever I suggested she consider the cup. I got creative and put plastic wrap under the toilet seat to try and catch some. She was too smart for that. That night, my temporal thermometer was reading 104. I changed the batteries. Still 104. I ran to Walgreens and bought a rectal thermometer: 105. I started freaking out. Luckily my husband was there to be the voice of reason. We gave Chloe Tylenol and ibuprofen. We fed her ice cream, gave her water, and kept her lightly dressed. Her fever dropped below a hundred before I put her to bed. But, neither of us slept.
Tuesday morning I bawled when she continued to refuse to potty. I got angry and yelled at my husband. I begged with her and made promises. We were both in tears when I collected half an ounce from the plastic wrap and ran to the doctor’s office. It took an agonizing half day before I got the answer. I called the doctor’s office and was told by a secretary that these tests take 2 days. I told her there was no way I was waiting two days. She told me the doctor was out of the office. The doctor, himself, called me back. The test was positive, he was calling in a prescription. I ran to the pharmacy. They didn’t have it yet. I went home and called the pharmacy. They couldn’t find the order. I called the doctor AGAIN. He told me who he had spoken to at the pharmacy. I called the pharmacy again. They had found it; it would be a half hour.
That night I held my three year old in my arms while she slept. I kept kissing her forehead, amazed at how cold it felt. Had I forgotten what non-feverish skin felt like? I was completely overwhelmed by the situation. She’d only had one dose of the Augmentin.
Thoughts whirred through my head. I remembered my baby girl as a two-month-old with a fever. Of course, I had rushed her to the pediatrician, who had rushed her to the hospital. She had pneumonia. We were given antibiotics and sent home. Within a day, it was like the whole thing had never happened. Penicillin was discovered in 1928, within my grandparents’ lifetimes. Would my baby have even survived two months without them? What would have happened this time if she had? What if we didn’t have immunizations? How many of my four beautiful children would have suffered from debilitating childhood illness?
I realized, again, the power of knowledge. As I am writing this, Chloe is acting completely normal. She will take the medicine for the next 9 days, but she is no longer lying listless, barely able to move. She’s laughing and jumping. It’s been 15 hours since I got her medicine.
This is getting reflective, but it’s something I want to share, because (although nothing could be bigger to me), it speaks to a much bigger point in its implications. This circumstance is really an excellent parable for what I am trying to communicate on this blog. Knowledge is power. It is power because it is freedom. It is our obligation to be informed as parents, as citizens, and as children of God. The slavery that comes from ignorance isn’t just disease. The choices we make either lead to freedom or enslavement and the ONLY way to insure that we remain free is to become informed before we make those choices. I truly believe that is why God gave us agency. He wants us to learn and to grow. He wants us to be free. I can understand him wanting that for his children. I want it for mine.
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