Immunization Hijinks

Wow it has been a long time since I have posted. Apologies. Going back to work is biting into my blog time.

So, let's travel to "let's imagine" land for some way out there "what ifs". Just appease me and play along. Let's imagine that you take your child, let's call her "Minsey Kay", to the doctor for her 1 year immunizations (happy birthday Minsey Kay, here's 4 big shots in your arm). Now let's say the doctor warns you that Minsey could have a fever for a few days after the shot, and perhaps a slight rash about 10-12 days after. Are you imagining this??? Can you see it??

Now let's imagine that Minsey comes down with a fever 3 days after the shots. And it's hovering at 40. What do you imagine you would think....related to the shots, no??? What if the high fever lasts for 4 days, and you call the doctor on day 2 and are told it's related to the shots....then imagine you muster up the courage to call the doctor, because really you feel like the most fretful mother around...and you take poor Minsey in and she ends up having a raging case of Strep/Tonsillitis that shocks the doctor when she peers in her throat. You might think that is one of the most ironic things that could happen to poor Minsey. A bad infection not dealt with because you thought it was the shots. What if there was more irony coming....because weird ironic things follow you like the plague....

Now fast forward to 10 days after the shots, and 7 days after Minsey started antibiotics. Let's say that Minsey is doing better. She still has a slight fever, but seems normal. Then imagine you pick her up from daycare and she is covered in spots. Again, you might think....hmmmm....those silly shots have struck again, right? Oh my, the doctor warned me about a mild case of measles-type spots. You would probably think everything was fine with Minsey, right??? But what you don't realize is, in "let's imagine" world, irony can kick you in the ass faster than you can say "omnipotent". So let's say the next day, you arrive home from work to find that poor Minsey looks like a leopard, with huge red spots covering her entire body. Would you still think it was the immunization??? What if you phone the nurses line, afraid they will tell you that you are an overreacting mother who is suspected of having Muchausen's Syndrome by Proxy.....and they actually tell you that Minsey might be having an allergic reaction to the antibiotics and you need to do something about it right away. So you phone the doctor on call and they say stop the antibiotics immediately and take her to the doctor tomorrow....Which you do and it turns out that it is both an allergic reaction to the medicine and a reaction to the immunizations. Would you think hmmm....I should win the fretful mother award because I was correct despite all medical information that told me not to panic?? Would you look at poor Minsey and say - your mother ROCKS at listening to her inner fretter and getting you medical attention??

Now let's come out of "let's imagine" land. Do you feel better now that you are back in the land of the sane where irony isn't that ironic??? Oh wait....it isn't an imaginary place....IT'S MY LIFE!! Poor Kinsey May (I really disguised her name well, didn't I??). Both times I went to the doctor I was almost hoping that something was wrong (not that I wish pain or illness on my daughter, by the way), because I was so scared that I was waaaaaayyyyy overreacting and that the doctors would label me as one of THOSE fretful mothers.

So what enduring lesson can we learn from this weird and wacky combination of events??? That if it seems too weird to actually happen to a person, it will happen to me. Because irony and me, we go way back. I think I should rewrite the Alanis Morissette song. Or make it my theme song. Or rename myself Irony. Isn't it ironic???