Wouldn't it be ironic to strangle yourself with oxygen tubing? A pictorial of my day.

A pictorial
minute-by-minute account
of my shitty day

Ike-a-saurus is on day five of some kind of sick. Coughing until he barfs, runny nose, good times. No fever, but no appetite either. It's been (barely) manageable up until today when the oximeter went APESHIT CRAZY.

 
Can you see its glowing, evil face?

We are all minding our own business, trying to feed an angry (almost) toddler strawberry pediasure, when suddenly BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP. It says his O2 sat is 50. If it was 50, he would be blue and almost unconscious. I've seen him at 50 before. And when you're pissed enough to have the monster strength to heave your glass bottle at your mom's coffee mug and break the fucking handle off, you're not at 50.

Not at 50.

So the nurse and I are all, WTF? (After we are all, "Holy SHIT did you SEE that?") And then I remember the night nurse had had some WTF moments with the blasted oximeter, too (but not with bottles used as deadly weapons).

I know you're supposed to look at your baby to see how he's breathing (duh), but when he's trached and he's sick, and you don't know how well his body has adapted to low sats over time, you need an accurate machine. Right? Right.

It's still early yet, and the medical supply company has lovely banker's hours, so I call the after hours folks and tell them we have a faulty machine and need a new one asap. No one calls me back. My husband calls, and within moments someone claims to be sending a respiratory therapist out with a new machine for the day, while a different model is being shipped to arrive tomorrow. Nice work, hubby, but WTF? No one calls back the mom but the dad gets prompt attention?

If only I had this close of a relationship with the medical supply company

The nurse and I decide that rather than arm wrestle each other over who gets to drop kick the pulseox out the window, we will patiently wait for the new one. In the meantime, we get to listen to BEEPBEEPBEEP about 65,000 fucking times, all while worrying, "Is really at 82? On 8 liters of oxygen? Do we take him to the ER? But he looks fine." This goes on ad nauseum. Ike even starts to take the machine's beeping seriously, and as it beeps at him he turns and points at it, all, "Eenh!" which is his polite way of saying, "Shut the fuck up."

Do you hear that? Maybe it's beeping because the probe is in my hand.

So we wait and we wait and we wait and we wait.

We waited so long Ike's nurse grew a beard.

Of course, six and half hours later no one has shown up with anything. Or called. It is like being stood up for prom, if prom consisted of waiting for someone to show up at your house with potentially life saving equipment for your child. So, not like prom, technically, but still filled with rage and sweating and stress eating.

I call the medical supply company and I'm all, "Um, hey where's that pulseox you promised us?" And they're all, "Hahahaha, what? We can't hear you? You're not a dude." And I'm all, "Shut up, assholes, where's my goddamned pulseox?" And they're all, "Your whowhat?" And I'm all, "MY GD OXIMETER, BITCHES." And they're all, "Oh, right, that's not coming in until tomorrow." And I'm all, "What about the one you said you were bringing over today? To prevent me from having to take my baby to the ER for no reason other than your sorry ass faulty medical equipment?" Them: "Ain't go nothin' for ya." Me: "I'M GOING TO PUNCH YOU IN YOUR GAPING EAR HOLE." Them: "See you tomorrow! Maybe! Except that the RT who's supposed to bring the machine to your house is off tomorrow. Bye now!" And this is when I start smelling burnt toast and having an ice pick stabby feeling in the base of my skull.

Rage stroke. All the cool kids are having them.

By this time, it's late. Our nurse has gone home for the day, the wee one is home from school, there is an adundance of screaming and crying and shouting and watching of Kipper, just like every other afternoon. Only, with a sick Ike-a-saurus on top of everything, I don't have time for a lot of the shouting part. This is why the wee one goes out in 52-degree weather to ride his scooter. Shirtless.

Once I figure this out and force him back inside (by gesticulating wildly through the window), I decide to try to cook dinner while still keeping tabs on the coughing, de-satting Ike.

Bad idea

Then I give up on ever feeding anyone again and decide maybe a nice fuzzy-headed baby nuzzle will make everything better.

Bad idea, II

Finally, my husband gets home from work, he manages to feed all of us, bathe some of us, and allows me to shoot tiny tranquilizer blow darts at others of us. (Kidding about the blow darts. Too bad.)

I get the kids to bed (after the wee-er one demands to wear her "Firetrucks and Ho's" jammies for the second night in a row. (Sigh. She means "ho ho ho's". Santa pants. And a firetruck shirt. I promise)).

And now I am here, typing this out and thinking, "What the hell am I doing? I should be sleeping." So I am off to go try that out. The pulseox is still not working right, and the poor night nurse is fiddling with everything and Ike is trying to sleep amongst the hubbub. It really is a disaster.

Like this, but with the oximeter on top of the cage and the rest of us inside of it

I wonder what tomorrow will bring? Do I dare to dream it will be a WORKING PULSEOX? I guess only time will tell.

Comments

[Frances]

So today is the 3rd and I sure hope you got a working O2 thing-a-majingy thing. Now. Scary stuff and pissed off stuff. That is a bad day. Cooking kind of sucks on a good day to me, I am impressed you tried it on a bad day.

[Kara]

Ho. Lee. Shit.

[Irene of the North]

oh sweetheart. that is an ass day. requiring the wearing of ass hats by those people on the phone. I really feel badly that I continue to laugh at what have been horrible days for all of you, but the picture montage was too much. the glasses were what did me in. Hang in there kiddo. just think of the verbal barrage you can inflict on the lovely delivery person.

[kitka]

Love the customer service from the medical supply house. They need Tabitha from Tabitha's Salon Takeover to slap them unconscious and get things in gear. Hoping for an easier time for the Haiku house.