No, no, no – not a computer virus. Please don’t run away screaming!

What diagnosis do we parents get for our children when doctors don’t know what’s making them sick?

Must be that virus that’s going around.

Seems like that virus we’ve been seeing.

So what you’re really saying is that a bunch of people/children are sick with the same exact thing and you have no freaking idea what’s wrong with them? And you went to med school for this? Take Tylenol and drink lots of fluids?!?! You’re a genius. I bow to your vast knowledge achieved in countless years of medical school. Fluids and Tylenol - *phhbbtt*

Yesterday afternoon I get a call from my husband at 3pm that my 5 year old is running a high fever and can I go pick her up from his mother’s house. I have our only vehicle in my possession so it falls to me. Plus my work is more flexible so it’s really a no-brainer who gets to go.

So anyway, I pick her up, pick my husband up from work and we head home. Pick up my older two children at the neighbors and find out that my 7 year old is sick too. With a high fever, achy, tired. That’s it for symptoms. Nothing major. My 4 year old just had it last week. It lasted 3 days and then it went away as fast as it appeared. But my husband refuses to just give the girls Tylenol and fluids because didn’t I realize they have dangerously high fevers, look at them, they’re obviously VERY sick and need to go to the doctor’s office, blah, blah, blah. I tell him it’s only because the Tylenol hasn’t kicked in yet. Give it 20 minutes. Yes having 4 children has made me a bit, shall we say, jaded.

So as he’s telling me I’m a horrible, neglectful mother, I’m dialing the doctor’s office. Yes they can see us at 7pm. So we head over, two sick, listless children and one rather resentful mother. After 40 minutes sitting in the waiting room they call us back. 40 minutes! Do you know how much two children can whine in 40 minutes? And then I see that the nurse is carrying around a laptop. They’re computerized now. Oh joy! That should take at least another hour, no?

20 more minutes before we see the doctor. At this point I’m teaching my 7 year old to read the chart on the wall about the heart. “That’s right honey, Aorta, Ventricle……” The doctor finally appears, examines the 5 year old, and then disappears for 10 minutes! He comes back with a computer printout and a prescription. Then he asks what’s wrong with the 7 year old, I tell him all the same symptoms, he tells me to divide the prescription between the two of them and that we can now be on our way.

It’s 8:45pm and we’re finally leaving the doctor’s office. I call my husband from my cell phone to let him know we’re finally on our way and he asks what was wrong with the girls. I tell him it’s just a virus and all they need is Tylenol and fluids (and the anti-nausea medicine the doctor gave me a script for on the off chance they actually get a stomach ache – genius, no?). And do you know what my husband, the father of these two horribly sick children says to me?

“Well I told you not to bother to take them to the doctors – I knew it was just a virus.”