As I stated in my last entry, Polly has been sick. She has been sick off and on for over a month and although I’ve taken her to the doctor’s and we even spent a night in the ER I haven’t gotten anything more than a “She has a virus” from the doctors. I took her back in on Thursday and demanded that tests be done, blood and urine and X-rays and whatever it took to determine why she can’t shake this. Her pediatrician was concerned as well, and he ran every test I asked for and then some. We walked out of there with three prescriptions; one for an antibiotic because her phlegm is green and the doctor wanted to kill any infection, one for pseudoephedrin because she is severely congested and you can’t buy that over the counter anymore thanks to the meth making tweakers , and one for a cough syrup that contains codeine because her cough keeps her up all night long and I have been pulling my hair out trying to help her with steamy showers, a humidifier and metholatum rubbed on her chest, all to no avail. There was a bit of trouble at the pharmacy over the pseudoephedrin because our insurance refused to pay for it. I picked up saltines, popsicles and 7 up while I waited for the pharmacy to communicate with our insurance company. After some time I took Polly home and put her in bed, waited an hour and took the bus back up to the store to see if the medicine was ready yet. Exasperated, I finally told them I would just pay cash for the pseudoephedrin.
Back at home at last Polly told me the only thing she felt like eating was chicken noodle soup. Digging through the cupboards I found only one can, which I heated up and gave to her. Torn between going back to the store again in the pouring rain and coming up with an alternative I decided to make chicken noodle soup from scratch. Now I am a vegetarian, have been for 18 years, but I do cook meat for Alex and the kids. I have never made chicken soup before but I figured it couldn’t be too hard. When the soup was finally done Polly was asleep but Nathan and Alex eagerly ate some. Nathan sad it was so good, but next time please make it with more noodles, and Alex declared it the best soup I had ever made. After spending about 2 seconds on cloud nine from his compliment (he usually doesn’t have much positive to say about my cooking) he added, “Because most of the soups you make are crap.” I was shocked and instantly angry. “What about my cream of potato?” I spit back. “Oh yeah, that one is pretty good.” “What about my lentil?” I had to keep going. “That one is crap.” I left him to his soup and went back to wash dishes.
Friday night Polly had no appetite, a fever of 102.2 and was vomiting. She had also had two shots at the doctor’s office, flu and pneumonia. The arm she had the pneumonia shot in was swollen and red. Alex insisted she be taken to the Emergency Room right away, but instead I paged her doctor and waited for him to call back. Alex paced around and got ready for work, certain that she was having some sort of reaction to one of the shots or one of the medicines and googling to see if he could figure out what was wrong with her. I held her hair back as she puked and listened for the phone. This is the closest Alex and I have come to an argument in a very long time. Having been at the hospital with her recently I couldn’t imagine waiting for hours in the waiting room while burning with fever and vomiting would do her any good. Finally her doctor called me back and said that her temperature wasn’t high enough for concern and that as long as she was urinating four times per day she wasn’t dehydrated and there was no need to take her to the hospital. He asked to see her back in his office next Thursday. I spent the night on the floor next to her bed. Alex called in anyway, certain she was having a reaction to something.
Most of yesterday was spent tending to her and I was relieved last night when the fever finally broke.
When she was finally hungry I went to the fridge to get her some soup only to find that there was only half a bowl left. I warmed that up and fed it to her. When I commented to Nathan that the entire pot of chicken soup I had cooked was gone, he said, “You need to make more of that! That stuff was good!”
It is presently Sunday morning and I am right back where I started, wondering whether to make another pot of soup from scratch, for my conscience, for Polly, or to just go to the store and buy the stuff in a can.