Adventures at the Doctor's Office

The other day I took Dennis to the doctor. He had been plagued by a fever, hacking cough and runny nose for about a week and was just pretty much miserable. Since the weekend was coming up, I decided I'd better get in and double check that it wasn't anything too serious.

So the three of us (Q, Dennis and I) headed out with plenty of time to spare and stopped to grab some lunch on the way. Luckily the line was forever long so I had time to change Q in my lap as we inched our way to the front. He had just got up from a nap and needed some clothes, socks and shoes. I handed the cashier my money while pulling up Q's pants and mumbled something about multi-tasking as we pulled to the next window to collect our lunch. I then re-buckled Q, distributed the food and headed to the office, silently congratulating myself on being on time, with kids fed and clothed and everything running smoothly.

We made it to the office, parked, piled out with sippy cup in tow and headed in. Unfortunately, as we reached the door, I noticed that the sign had been changed...at which moment I had a vague recollection of the office moving awhile back and since we hadn't been in a bit, I of course had no idea where they currently were. Thank goodness for friends and the Internet! After a quick call, I got the new address and phone number to the office. I quickly called to inform them of what had happened and that we would be late. Of course, Q was yelling loudly and squirming while I was trying to get him back in the car and Dennis was repeatedly asking what was going on, and in the process I managed to knock over a cup of ice water all over the van...needless to say I was a tad frazzled at this point. Luckily they moved my appointment back ten minutes and we zoomed off.

We again made it to the office, parked, piled out...(forget the sippy cup this time), and headed in. We found the office, signed in, filled out paperwork, paid the copay, blah, blah, blah and sat down to wait. Q was happily climbing on chairs and roaming around. Dennis and I were chatting and I was starting to de-frazzle. Phew!

Once it was our turn, we walked back, weighed Dennis and got to a room. That's when I realized something didn't smell right... and I wasn't sure if I had a diaper.... or wipes... I dug around in my purse and found a smashed, but usable diaper, but no wipes. The nurse noticed the look of panic on my face and went to get some, along with a minuscule bag to put the dirty diaper in. I then set to work changing his diaper on the paper-covered table. Except it wasn't a simple diaper change, it was a full on blowout...and it was EVERYWHERE...up the front, the back, the sides, you name it. I proceeded to use about 73 wipes to try and clean up the horrendous mess, but it seemed to get bigger as I worked. And of course it ended up on his hands, his shirt, his pants, I think his feet even...uggh...the temperature seemed to go up about 10 degrees and I started panicking thinking the doctor was going to walk in on the nightmare any second. I finally got it manageable and picked his legs up to double check the underside, only to find that the mess had soaked through the paper on the table to create a sort of paste consisting of nasty, gooey, dissolved paper and youknowwhat. Lovely.

The next 5 seconds were a blur as adrenaline kicked in and took over. I somehow finished wiping up the babe, reapplied a diaper, put his clothes on (after washing off the soiled parts as best as possible), ripped off the nasty paper section, stuffed the diaper, 73 wipes and ruined paper into the minuscule bag...barely tied it shut, sanitized both of our hands and was in the process of washing the table down with soap and water when the doctor came in. He quickly walked back out. I'm pretty sure it smelled like something had died in there and the stench must have hit him like a freight train. Especially since I can bet he was not prepared in the least bit for such a blow to the nose. He called for the nurse to help, but I was nearly done. I dried off the table, pulled up new paper and voila... you couldn't even tell....except for the staggering odor.

Anyway, they moved us to a new room, checked out Dennis, determined he was fine and we left to run one last, fairly uneventful errand.

Needless to say, it was one for the books and I was very tired that night.