First Week of School

I kept waiting this week for some phenomenally hilarious thing to happen during the first week of school so that I could blog about it, but it was a pretty boring week as first weeks of school go. My students were great, my kids liked their teachers and friends, and life shifted from summer laziness and fun to school year homework and grading like someone flipped a switch.  We at the Hickman house love routine, so everyone seems to be calmer and happier this week even though we're all pretty tired.

It was on Thursday that the school nurse called me right at the beginning of my conference period. Keaton was having an asthma attack, and he didn't have an inhaler at school yet. Just the day before I'd sent the medical permission form with Keaton and his mimi to the allergist so that we could send the inhaler to school legally. After several conversations and a phone call to Trey, we relented to the fact that our allergist only signs forms on Fridays, and no little thing like my son's health was going to change that.

Here I was, less than 24 hours later, rushing home to get an inhaler to Keaton's school on my conference period because he couldn't breathe. The nurse called two more times while I was on my way (a ten minute drive) because he was clearly in distress. By the time I got there he was struggling for breath, and it was pretty scary. With his medicine he recovered quickly, and I took him to his mimi's for the rest of the afternoon.

I was furious.  I cussed the allergist over and over again (alone, to myself in the car) for putting my son's health at risk and vowed to switch doctors immediately. I also reflected on the fact that I'd just taught my son on the fourth day of school that if you go to the nurse and look pitiful then someone will come to take you to Mimi's. He's a smart kid, so I knew he would use that to his best advantage.

Friday morning came, and Keaton refused to go to school. He said he was sick and needed to stay home. To us, he seemed to have a little cold, but overall he looked more like a kid who just wanted to hang out all day.

He kicked, he screamed, he flatly refused, he cried -- and still we sent him off to school.

Around eleven, Trey left work to give Keaton another dose of cold medicine, and when he arrived at the school he found Keaton already in the nurse's office. The nurse insisted that Keaton needed to see a doctor soon and that he couldn't stay at school. So off to Mimi's he went again, and Trey made a doctor's appointment for the afternoon.

As Keaton and I waited to see the doctor, we played a little battleship on my phone. When they called his name around 4:20, he quickly became short of breath. Before I could give him his inhaler, the nurses checked his oxygen levels, and that's when it got crazy.

Did you know that if your oxygen level is too low, then the little oxygen checker machine flashes red and makes loud beeping sounds?  Well, it does, and it did on Friday afternoon.

The pediatrician rushed in, they dosed Keaton with steroids and started a nebulizer treatment immediately.  All I could think was "And we kept sending him to school. We are the worst parents ever." Trey left work and joined us at the doctor. Minutes before he was breathing hard, but he was also playing battleship and shouting "YESSSS!!" every time he hit an enemy ship. Now this seemed like it could be serious.

One and a half hours, lots of prescriptions, two neb treatments, one dose of steroids, and a signed medical form for an inhaler at school later, we left the doctor's office.

After all that, Keaton is doing much better. He's taking oral steroids and inhaled steroids for five days, so I hope his teacher is prepared for Keaton on crack.

Remember my posts about Tucker on steroids?  How he gets really mean and violent?  Well, that doesn't happen to Keaton at all. In fact, the only way that Keaton on Steroids is like Tucker on Steroids is that his personality is exacerbated.

Keaton is happy, giggly, joyful, excited, ridiculous, and everything else he normally is, but times one hundred. He's been talking non-stop for three days, only it goes like this:

"Mom I need some drums for Christmas can Santa fit drums down the chimney? I found a place for them next to the piano but not on the side by the bathroom on the other side who will play the piano while I play my drums can you play the piano? maybe dad can play the piano because when I play my drums it will be awesome like dumdumdumdum and maybe I can play bust it because I like that song do you think tucker wants some drums? can I have some lemonade? Yum lemonade ice cold lemonade do we have any ice? i need ice cold lemonade with ice see it's ice cold because it has ice in it it's awesome."

Yesterday Trey actually asked him to go jump on his bed, and he happily obliged -- jumping and jumping and jumping and singing Don't Stop Believing at the top of his lungs and playing air guitar and calling things like lemonade and drums and Big Time Rush "awesome" over and over again.

In summary, we are the meanest parents in all the world, sending our very sick son to school twice, Keaton's allergist sucks big time and will be receiving a scathing letter as soon as I can get things set up at the new allergist, and Keaton is currently a hilarious crackhead.

All of this is to say that surely the second week of school will bring me something phenomenally hysterical.  Don't worry, I'll keep you posted.