What a day!!

I'm just getting home from a LONG day. I'm so tired, I could cry. I have a killer migraine coming, partly because the only thing I've put in my mouth today was a piece of gum. The other part is that I woke up with my period. (Sorry, boys!)

Let me give you the highlights-

When I was about a block away from school at the end of the day, I got a call from Stud's school. It was the secretary from the Dean's Office. Naturally, my first thought was, "What the HELL did he do NOW!?" She tells me, "I'm just calling to tell you Stud is having some issues with stomach pains, and he's in the library. Are you on your way to pick him up?" I tell her I am, and she says, "Ok, then just come to the front and we'll buzz you in." Hmmm, that's weird, I thought. So now I'm driving a little more aggressively, as I'm trying to hurry. I called my sister to chat, like I do most days on my way home. I tell her about the call, and we keep talking. About 10 minutes after the first call, I get a second call from school. "This is Mrs. L. again. I just wanted to call you back so you weren't alarmed when you got here. We've called an ambulance for Stud." WTF?!?!?! I click back over to my sister, tell her what's going on, and she says she's leaving right now and she'll meet me there. Now, I'm kinda freaking out. While I'm driving like a lunatic, I make the executive decision to call CSJ.

It seemed that every single street I turned down was the wrong street. Construction here, traffic jam there, argh! I was losing it!! Then, I called my sister when I was about 5 or 6 blocks away to see if she was there yet. She said that she had just pulled up, but watched them load Stud into the ambulance and leave. She didn't know where they were going, because they seemed to be going the wrong way. As we were talking, I got close enough to the school to see the flashing lights of the ambulance, and they were, indeed, going the 'wrong' way. They were heading south, when the closest hospital was north, and only about a mile away.

My sister took off after the ambulance, while I tried to call the office. Because it was after hours, no one answered. I decided I'd better stop at the school first and find out where the hell they were going. I screeched into a spot in front of the entrance, threw my door open and ran to the building. I saw one of the deans waiting at the door for me. He told me that the two hospitals that were close were both on by-pass, and so they had to take Stud to a different hospital further away. I jumped back into my car, which I had left running with the door open, and took off down the street. I called my sister to let her know where they were going, which was a good because she had lost them at that point. I called CSJ back and updated him. At this point, I was in the full-on ugly cry. I couldn't believe I had missed them by a matter of less than a minute, and I kept thinking about my baby being alone in the back of an ambulance, probably scared to death.

Wow, this is WAY longer than I had intended, and I'm exhausted, so I'm going to wrap it up. First, let me tell you that he's fine. The doctor said it was probably just a virus. I guess what happened was, as he was sitting in the library after school, working on a paper, he got a pain in his hip. He said he felt like he needed to lie down, so he did, right there on the library floor. This prompted the librarian to yell at him to get up. But, as he started to try and get up, he felt his stomach start flip-flopping, so he yelled for a friend to bring him the garbage, and he proceeded to vomit several times. By then, the dean had arrived. He tried to help Stud get up, and then Stud said he told him he needed to use the bathroom. He was sweating profusely, and had the chills. He made it to the bathroom just in time to have massive, explosive diarrhea.

Apparently, when he started vomiting, the school decided to call 911. He said the paramedics arrived while he was in the bathroom, and they took him from there. At the hospital, they drew some blood (another post all by itself!!) and took a urine sample. Like I said, the doc said he thought it was just a virus, but wanted to wait for the lab work. In the meantime, they gave him some IV fluids, and some medication through the IV for pain, and the nausea. A little while later, the nurse came back for more blood (Oh, holy mother of God, yet ANOTHER post!!) and we waited some more. The doctor finally came back after about another hour and said everything came back normal, and that it was a stomach virus. He sent him home with 3 prescriptions (2 for pain/cramps, 1 for nausea/vomiting).

The nurse that came to discharge him removed the IV, and put a bandage on his hand. Well, for some reason, when he started to put his coat on, the bandage popped, and blood started spurting. I really thought I was going to have to catch him when he passed out. Instead, he managed to throw himself over the edge of the bed, while she fixed him up. That was the icing on the cake. I may have mentioned before that I DON'T DO BLOOD. Apparently, my crappy-ass attitude has rubbed off on my son. He doesn't do blood OR needles. Maybe I'll bore you with the details tomorrow.

We had plans for tonight to attend a special event for one of Stud's besties. His friend, George, was being baptized tonight at his new church, and had invited us to come about a month ago. For the past few days, we've been talking about tonight, and we made plans to pick up Bro from school, as he was invited, too. Oh, I forgot to mention Bro!

In the windup, he rode along in the ambulance with Stud, so he wasn't alone after all. I love that man!!! I told you a little about him here after the Mother/Son Dance. (George is also in that post. He's the one we snuck in to the dance!) Anyway, he stayed with us at the hospital for quite a while. Eventually, my sister decided she was going to go since CSJ was there with me, and so she took Bro home. I felt terrible that he had been there so long, and even worse that now, he didn't have a ride to the baptism. (Bro doesn't drive for medical reasons.) He said he was going to just walk there (the church is about 4-5 blocks from the boys' school, which is where Bro lives.) but the temperatures were going to be really frigid tonight. I felt awful.

I assumed we weren't going to make it to the baptism, given the circumstances, and I had texted George several times from the hospital to keep him in the loop, but the last few texts said we probably weren't going to make it. He kept saying not to worry about it, and to let him know how Stud was doing, etc. Well, somehow, we made really good time on the drive home, and lo and behold, we happen to approach the church only a few minutes after the event was to start. Stud absolutely INSISTED that we turn into the lot and go to the baptism. I kept telling him that George understood, but he said this was VERY important to George and he wanted to be there. So, we went!

We left the church around 9, but then had to drop off his prescriptions. I also had to get gas, as I didn't want to do it tomorrow. Our temperatures are supposed to drop to below zero tomorrow. By the time I went back to Walgreen's, and got home, it was nearly 10pm. Thank GOD Buster didn't decide to punish us by using my kitchen as a toilet. The poor baby hadn't been out since 7 this morning!

Oh my holy hell, it's now a quarter to 11!! I HAVE to go to bed. I still don't know whether Stud is going to school tomorrow or not. They didn't say he couldn't, and he's insisting he wants to go because he's working on some art project he REALLY wants to finish. (Yeah, how shocking that it isn't an English paper he REALLY want to write!) I'm afraid he may have a repeat of the vomiting, or, God forbid, the explosive diarrhea. I guess we'll have to wait and play it by ear in the morning. In the meantime, I'm going to go check on my baby, and then put my exhausted self to bed. I'm really feeling the effects of the adrenaline crash!