He has little stomach issues all the time. We're used to his intestines doing strange and (not really) wonderful things. It doesn't always mean that he's actually sick, though.
However, when we I go to get him up and he vomits on the stairs, then I know something's up.
When I go check his room to see if he vomited down there, and I find brown abstract art all over his fitted sheet and on the floor, then I know it's Game On.
Long story short, my normally Bouncing-Off-the-Wall Baby Boy was a couch potato. That's how you know he's really sick.
The one alarming thing that happens each time he's sick is that he begins to smell like acetone. If you didn't know better, you'd swear he'd just chugged a bottle nail polish remover. None of his doctors can explain it; all his blood work has come back normal. The strong the smell is, the worse he feels. I guess it's good that we have some kind of indicator, since he can't tell us what's wrong.
The Princess had that once; she was hospitalized for three days with dehydration and the flu. So, I don't like to play around with that stuff. With ER visits $100 a pop, though, I also don't want to run to the hospital unnecessarily.
By the end of the day, I thought a call to the after-hours nurses line might be a good idea. Just to touch base; I figured that they wouldn't tell me anything new, but if he got worse, I wanted something on record.
I called, had to leave a message with the operator, who would pass our info to a nurse, and that nurse would call us soon.
The nurse called back about 10 minutes later. She verified his medical history, including his Autism and ADHD. I then started to go into his litany of aliments. As I got to the part where I was describing the contents of his diaper this morning, I was interrupted.
"Excuse me, ma'am? Why is he in a diaper?"
Uh, why is this important?
"Because he's Autistic and non-verbal and refuses to potty train?"
"Oh," she says. "It's the Autism."
What the ever-loving fu...dge...was that?
The way she said it, was like "Auuuuuuuuuu-tiiiiiii-sm". Apparently, it needed to be enunciated for emphasis, like it being front and center in my life everyday wasn't emphasis enough.
I only half-listened to her after that. I could already tell that she'd skipped Empathy Class in nursing school.
Two hours later, I'm still trying to process that seemingly simple statement. A hundred ways to interpret that come to mind, none of them positive.
The virus should run it's course, she said. I'll bet she wishes that darn "Auuuuuuuuuu-tiiiiiii-sm" would run it's course as well.
