Monday, June 21, 2010

gone daddy gone

Father’s day has come and gone like Haley’s comet; wonderful to behold, definitely worthy of having a beer in the wee hours and not due to return again for what seems like forever. It was wonderful, to put it mildly. A birthday is okay, Christmas is equal parts suck and blow but fathers day, sheeeeeit, man. It’s literally a holiday that’s specifically devoted to beer and televised sports, at least for now.

Some father’s day soon, I’m sure I’ll be greeted at five thirty in the morning by two little well meaning gremlins carrying a tray of what can only be barely described as ‘breakfast’ and I’ll be expected to eat the burnt toast smeared with mayonnaise and jam, the underscrambled eggs and the snickers bar mini that they’ve slaved over as thanks for all the butt wiping I’ve provided during the last calendar year. And it will be (again) five thirty in the morning. Then they’ll give me a tie or a golf club coozie. That’s the father’s day of the future, but my father’s day yesterday was a stone groove, bros. A little world cup, a little beer, a steak for dinner. Some pancakes for breakfast after sleeping in to the ungodly late hour of TEN AM!!! Not bad, folks. Not bad at all.

It’s funny, being a parent; just today I found myself thinking a thought that I never ever thought would warrant my cognition. That thought was “man, it’s really hard to clean this feces out of these wrinkly balls”. That’s being a dad. One second your life is all wide open and in front of you and you’re banging this hot chick unabashedly after a night of being out late before a day of sleeping and brain dead lounging, the next moment you’re scrubbing the poo out of a two year old boy’s ballsack in a bathroom stall at the local YMCA with a wet nap. What’s next? Sticking my head in an elephant’s ass? Damn straight I should be allowed to sleep in and eat pancakes and steaks one day a year! Fuck. The funny thing is, this year, right-RIGHT before father’s day (Friday, to be exact) I really had my first day of hardcore parenting, and it was brutal.

would you like to hear about it?

Okay, well, I don’t care. I’m gonna tell you anyway. Here’s the scene: It’s six PM. I’m about to leave for work. My kid, the old one, the boy, is on his little ottoman at my bathroom sink brushing his teeth (which is code for eating toothpaste, splashing water everywhere, and hiding anything unlucky enough to be left on the counter [nail clippers and wallets are good examples of these things] someplace where it will never, ever be found). I go to get some socks. When I return after about a minute, he’s got his hand in this jar of iron supplements. He’s soaking wet from the tooth brushing and the green coating on these pills bleeds like crazy, so his hands are green and his mouth is green. I ask him “hey, did you eat any of these?” and he says “yup.”

So, I look at the jar. It’s just a vitamin, right? No big deal. Well, here’s what it says on the jar: ‘iron poisoning is the leading cause of death among children under the age of six’.

That’s the kind of thing that wakes you up. So we call poison control and they tell us to go to the closest emergency room. When we ask if we should just go to the children’s hospital, they say no, they’re already on the phone with our local ER and they’ve told ‘em we’re coming. So we freak out, dive in the car and drive down to the ER where they take his blood and Xray his stomach. We sit there for three hours before an ambulance comes and drives my kid and I to the Children’s hospital for an overnight stay. My wife and the baby take off to get us food and vow to meet us at the next hospital. Everyone is losing their mind. Well, my kid was stoked on the ambulance and all the attention, but the rest of us were fucking basket cases.

The dude that drove the ambulance was a magician. He also answered his cel at one point and said “yeah. Yeah, I can do that, but it’s gonna cost you fifty bucks. If you don’t have it, I’m gonna take it home with me. Okay, bye”. I don’t know what that was about, but it struck me as a pretty awesome exchange under the circumstances.

Anyway, we get to the children’s hospital and we’re sharing a room with a mom and a kid who looks like he’s been knocked around pretty good, possible broken arm at least, and sounds like he’s got respatory problems. The cops are in there interviewing the mom, who’s beside herself. She’s also, for some reason that’s blowing my mind even now, watching “worlds wildest police videos” that’s featuring all sorts of people bleeding from the head and getting their teeth knocked out and shit. Anyway, my kid’s losing his mind, crying, kicking, screaming, and at this point it’s about ten at night. He’s usually asleep at 8 and he’s usually not got a needle and IV attachment in his arm and he’s usually been fed and he’s usually not in a cagelike contraption at the children’s hospital surrounded by cops and cute little mangled babies and he’s wondering where his mom is and why all these diodes and stickers and wires are being attached to him. I’m very little comfort during all this. The nurse got me a chair to sleep in next to his cage/crib, which was nice in the same way that when the amazon tribe gives you the eyeballs of the monkey to eat it’s ‘nice’ because it’s obviously the best they can do, but it’s not exactly what you were hoping for.

Well, his mom showed up with the baby and some mcnuggets and pretty much saved the day. We were told that things were looking good but we’d need to wait a few hours for more tests.

My wife and baby eventually left and my boy fell asleep and I walked around the unit up there on the ninth floor and came to a shocking conclusion: A children’s hospital may sound like a fun time, but it’s easily the most depressing place on earth. I’ve had more fun at church, honestly. I’ve had more fun on road trips with just my mom. I’ve had more fun being punished by those guys who say “wow. I really thought there would be more people here. Guess you guys aren’t that popular, huh (said usually in german accent)?”

In short, it really sucked. BUT, at 2 AM they did the second round of tests, determined that he’d probably not eaten more than one pill at most (a suspicion/hope that I had from the beginning due to the roughly one minute period of time he had been left unsupervised), and we were allowed to go home.

This was Friday. My wife had friends in town for one night only. We had a sitter. All that fell by the wayside. I just didn’t show up to work. I may be fired. All so we could do what? Pay something like forty five thousand dollars for an ER visit, an ambulance ride and a semi overnight stay in a second hospital. Cooooooool.

Now, of course all that is fine since he turned out to be okay. It’s just probably the biggest emotional rollercoaster I’ve ever been on. Thank god father’s day was right around the corner to soften the landing, right?

That’s being a parent folks. Don’t even think about getting your fucking socks. It’ll cost you.

17 comments:

Kubiwah said...

Holy shit dude.

I hope you aren't fired, it seams like you actually kinda liked this new place.

Glad to hear the kid is fine.
ain't it funny how McNuggets can save the day. lol.

my mom did the same thing for me when i was 4 and fell down 2 flights of stairs and bit through my lip and got 9 stitches.

That was the last time i was in the hospital for anything serious (knock on wood)

Scott said...

Glad your kid is ok. That sounds like a pretty brutal evening.

Hospitals in general are depressing. It's one thing when there are adults and old timers in one, but I hate seeing sick kids even more.

Good luck with the work, considering the situation, I would give you some lean on that one.

Unknown said...

I’ve had more fun being punished by those guys who say “wow. I really thought there would be more people here. Guess you guys aren’t that popular, huh (said usually in german accent)?”


ok, by that point i've realized something.... i can not only not expect that you come to germany anytime soon, it will probably never ever happen. you really seem to hate it here/the people. that makes me sad.

but glad that everything went well. kids seem to be really scary huh?

Candice said...

don't let one terrible experience with socks ruin it for the rest of us awesome, loving socks.

so glad he is ok! at 2 he can swallow a pill and at 28 i still can't- go figure.

Anonymous said...

My sister is a sonographer and did her clinicals (I think that's what they call it, I call it training) at Children's Memorial and she had at least three terribly heartbreaking stories after every shift. I'm sure she didn't give me all the happy stories and what not but I could imagine how rough it is when it's YOUR kid and not just some patient you gotta take care of.

planespotting said...

Yikes - that sounds like (one of) every parent's worst nightmares. Real glad to hear that everything came out OK.

So what's next? You gonna develop some kind of invisible mouth cage for kids so they can't put anything in their mouths until a parent unlocks it? That sounds like it would be a moneymaker.

Tell you what ... I'll let you develop my idea if you give me 20 percent. Deal?

Unknown said...

My sister-in-law is a neonatal nurse at a hospital in Cleveland and the strength it takes to have a job like that is amazing to me. It seems as depressing as it is rewarding.

Glad the 'lil dude is alright =D

Jorge said...

This post should have been called "Birth Control."

I don't think I could handle that kind of anxiety. That a minute long lapse in my awareness of a human being I was completely responsible for may or may not have killed/maimed them.

Ted Yang said...

http://sharetv.org/images/childrens_hospital-show.jpg

limited nobility said...

Gives new meaning to pumping iron.

limited nobility said...

That said I think every parent has one of those scares a near choking on a huge leaf for mine

Owner Operator said...

it sucks that your kid gets sick and you owe loke 45K :/ move to australia and that won't happen. hope the kids rockin out again. cheers

Sickie27 said...

:(
My parents never took me to the doctor unless it seemed I was dying. They took me when my skin turned orange (I really liked carrots) and took my brother once when he (purposefully) burned himself with a curling iron. Mischief is expensive.

Glad the little one is okay, though!

Andi said...

Dont worry maximilian... the larrys came to australia, even to my home of tasmania! Despite beex having sung 'australia is a piece of shit low in the pacific' in the past... So there's hope yet.

Anyway bk, i hope all works out good with you kid and job. Sound like a shit of a day:..

By the way, you should totally follow my blog! I would be starstruck... It would even top the photo i have of us cuddling while you flick off the camera.

Www.lookwhatgodjustdidtous.blogspot.com

Jesus said...

"Gives new meaning to pumping iron."
HA! But in all seriousness, good luck with the job and glad the little champ is alright. I must have listened to Ramblin' Boys at least 10 times today at the gym..

Anonymous said...

glad to hear he is ok, but shit, cool story dude, despite the real danger behind it. and the ambulance driver, what a character, i bet it was drugs, i 've known some ambulance drivers in the past that delivered drugs right to your apartment, marihuana or coke, and it felt really nice to score drugs with them because it felt kinda secure you know what i'm saying? like healthy scoring, if i had a heart attack because of too much cocaine i just had to call the dealer again!! two in one. all win.

to lighten up after all this drama you could do a post about paramore's singer twitting a photo showing her tits to her fans on her twitter account by mistake. whooooops! (for real)

Sexy Papa said...

Brendan,
I'm an undertaker so I often deal with the same people at the hospital as paramedics do, and a few of the paramedics. Anyway one day I went down to the morgue and as I came around the corner the paramedic was weighing out some pot for the morgue attendant, when he saw me coming he stuffed a bag of weed back into his cigarette pack and I said "hey, I heard selling grass was pretty common in your scene" he said "yeah" and walked away. I'm probably too square to fully understand but I find the phone conversation interesting.