I feel like all MY blood was drained out.
Today I took Skipper to her well-child appointment. I knew it would suck. Skipper is not at all invested in pleasing people in authority, and is substantially more oppositional than her sister ever was. She hates medical appointments, and has never been compliant for anything at a check up. I was pretty much willing to do anything to make this appointment go better, because I'm weak, so I took her to the toy store and had her pick out a substantial toy ($20!) to be her Big Bribe. I promised her that if she was compliant for everything, she could have the Big Bribe. If she was mostly compliant, she could have a Small Bribe. I really didn't think she would be able to earn the Big Bribe, but damned if she didn't make it through the appointment. She was miserable, and she refused to look at or talk to the doctor, but she permitted all sorts of indignities* to be visited on her without fighting back or screaming. She fought the shots, yes, but I was still impressed. But then the doctor said she was concerned enough about the eczema to recommend testing for food allergies.**
(The Eczema: Skipper's eczema has become, over the last three months, more localized and more intense, and she scratches the bad spots in her sleep, to the point where she's maintaining them as open wounds. She won't allow us to put on lotion. It's not a good scene. I have been feeling really crappy about it for a while, because I feel so helpless to fix it and I'm worried it'll get seriously infected. Skipper has taken to hiding her wounds from us - she has sores in the crooks of both elbows, and when she takes off her shirt she says "Don't look at my arms!" and she won't wear shorts or short sleeves.***)
Because I'm compliant, I said "Okay." And then we went to the lab. It took me and three Kaiser staff maybe 45 minutes to extract maybe a teaspoonful of blood total from three different places on Skipper, because she's small and her veins are elusive, and she was fighting like a miniature Incredible Hulk.*** Skipper's narrative went more or less like this: "I don't want to be here! DADDDDDDDEEEEEEE!!! I want my daddy! I want to go home! Ouchy ouchy ouchy ouchy! Stop! NOOOOO! I want to be asleep! I want to go home! Ouchy! I want to go home! I want to go to bed! Stop it RIGHT NOW!" etc. She actually started to look, by the end, like she really was going to use her preferred avoidance mechanism of going to sleep, which would have been really weird but really great. Anyway. We all survived. Worse things will happen in her life and in mine, but at the moment it felt deeply awful. Skipper and I staggered out of the building, sweaty and exhausted. While we were waiting for the bus, Skipper said "That was yuck-sucky," and I said "yes." She fell asleep a few minutes later, and when she wakes up, I'm taking her straight to the toy store to collect her Big Bribe.
And in other news, Skipper has been medically confirmed as being short (15th percentile) and fat (46th percentile).
*Like standing on a scale! And having the doctor look in her ears! Horrors!
** And a course of antibiotics. Ugh. I like our doctor, who seems to have similar parenting and medical philosophies to mine, so I tend to go along with her recommendations, and when she's concerned about something, it makes me nervous.
*** Rockstar Uncle, who had eczema, too, also refused to wear shorts when he was a kid. I have a memory (real? I don't know) of my mom writing a letter to Luke Skywalker to inquire whether he wore weather-appropriate clothing. Luke wrote back to say that he did indeed wear shorts in hot weather. I don't remember whether my brother was swayed by that.
**** I'm pretty sure they didn't get enough blood to do all the tests, but they were running out of places to puncture, and I think we were all emotionally really done with the process.
(The Eczema: Skipper's eczema has become, over the last three months, more localized and more intense, and she scratches the bad spots in her sleep, to the point where she's maintaining them as open wounds. She won't allow us to put on lotion. It's not a good scene. I have been feeling really crappy about it for a while, because I feel so helpless to fix it and I'm worried it'll get seriously infected. Skipper has taken to hiding her wounds from us - she has sores in the crooks of both elbows, and when she takes off her shirt she says "Don't look at my arms!" and she won't wear shorts or short sleeves.***)
Because I'm compliant, I said "Okay." And then we went to the lab. It took me and three Kaiser staff maybe 45 minutes to extract maybe a teaspoonful of blood total from three different places on Skipper, because she's small and her veins are elusive, and she was fighting like a miniature Incredible Hulk.*** Skipper's narrative went more or less like this: "I don't want to be here! DADDDDDDDEEEEEEE!!! I want my daddy! I want to go home! Ouchy ouchy ouchy ouchy! Stop! NOOOOO! I want to be asleep! I want to go home! Ouchy! I want to go home! I want to go to bed! Stop it RIGHT NOW!" etc. She actually started to look, by the end, like she really was going to use her preferred avoidance mechanism of going to sleep, which would have been really weird but really great. Anyway. We all survived. Worse things will happen in her life and in mine, but at the moment it felt deeply awful. Skipper and I staggered out of the building, sweaty and exhausted. While we were waiting for the bus, Skipper said "That was yuck-sucky," and I said "yes." She fell asleep a few minutes later, and when she wakes up, I'm taking her straight to the toy store to collect her Big Bribe.
And in other news, Skipper has been medically confirmed as being short (15th percentile) and fat (46th percentile).
*Like standing on a scale! And having the doctor look in her ears! Horrors!
** And a course of antibiotics. Ugh. I like our doctor, who seems to have similar parenting and medical philosophies to mine, so I tend to go along with her recommendations, and when she's concerned about something, it makes me nervous.
*** Rockstar Uncle, who had eczema, too, also refused to wear shorts when he was a kid. I have a memory (real? I don't know) of my mom writing a letter to Luke Skywalker to inquire whether he wore weather-appropriate clothing. Luke wrote back to say that he did indeed wear shorts in hot weather. I don't remember whether my brother was swayed by that.
**** I'm pretty sure they didn't get enough blood to do all the tests, but they were running out of places to puncture, and I think we were all emotionally really done with the process.
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