Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Two Trips to Phoenix

It takes about 30 minutes to get to Phoenix from my house.

This morning, I loaded up Asher and Fin and took them to visit Emily, my dear friend. We had a great time talking, encouraging our Ashers (yes, we both have sons named Asher) to share trains, and planning our feminist retreat for next March. We finished our visit with a trip to McDonald's, where Emily's ward had a playgroup. She introduced me to her ward friends and explained that I lived in Gilbert. One friend asked how we met. We looked at each other with a bit of amusement and embarrassment as Emily enunciated, "We met on the internet."
Wow, that was funny. I guess I don't say that very often. But, it's true.
So, that was the morning, fun and a little embarrassing (I showed up early and I forgot my wallet, so Emily bought us lunch). But, we had such a great time, it totally made up for my chagrin.

So, you're asking yourself how I could possibly have another trip to Phoenix in the same day?
Here you go:
Jaxon's teacher calls and leaves me a message that Jaxon is very lethargic, falling asleep on his desk in the afternoon.
Thirty minutes later, Jaxon stumbles off the school bus and the girl behind him tells me that he fell asleep on the bus. He walks into the house, throws his backpack on the floor and collapses on the futon (the closest piece of furniture). So, I think, "He had a late night and woke up early. He's just tired."
But then, 45 minutes later when I take him to the car so we can go to grandma's for swimming and dinner, he seems hot, and non-responsive. Immediately, I start to think of his last port infection, and how similar his symptoms are.
A few phone calls and 12 minutes later, we're at my mom's house. I don't even wait for her to use her too-slow glass thermometer to get an accurate temperature. He's too hot, he's too lethargic. I call our nurse/friend/mother of a hemophiliac, Lori (aka Doctor Lori) and she tells me to bring him in. And, she says, if he gets worse on the way, pull over and call 911.
So, Jaxon and I take off, and on the way, he starts to wake up a little. By the time we get there, he's alert, mostly himself and that's good, because there's no parking anywhere near PCH emergency department. We got a spot on the 3rd floor of the parking garage and made our way to the entrance.
The benefits of having hemophilia are that they'll call ahead to the ED and reserve you a room.
It's like having frequent flyer miles :)
So, Jaxon looks pretty good, his fever's not that high. He's STARVING, though, and asks every single person who walks in the room, "Where's my dinner?" And we take that as a good sign.
After they draw blood and give him an antibiotic (and dinner), they send us home.
That whole event only took 3 hours.


So, that was 2 hours in the car today. Quite an eventful day, actually.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought that story was going to get worse and have a horrible ending! I'm so glad I was wrong.

Jessica Steed said...

Yeah, I thought it was going to end badly, too. I was prepared to stay the night in the hospital.
With hemophilia, things can change really quickly.

But, I probably should make this post a little more light-hearted.
I don't want to be the mother who cried wolf :)

Alisa said...

Wow. I am so glad Jaxon is OK. I think that's hilarious about meeting Emily on the Internet. I consider D'Arcy my good friend who I met on the Internet, even if it turns out we have connections.

EmilyCC said...

Oh. My. Goodness! And, here I am, letting Asher's "art" put me in a foul mood. Your's and Jaxon's day certainly puts things in perspective...

So glad Jaxon is ok and that we got to play :)

Jessica Steed said...

Emily,
No, it really wasn't that big of a deal. If Jaxon hadn't been so tired, I probably wouldn't have thought much of the fever. He's been having them pretty regularly the last few weeks. (Mark reminded me of this today)

Alisa,
Yeah, we're glad he's okay, too.
It is funny how we meet people over the internet. It's really not such a big deal like it was a few years ago. People meet and date over the internet all the time these days. It's not so strange that we should meet like-minded people as well.

Nick and Maddy Winward said...

Wow Crazy! What ended up being wrong? I am glad things turned out ok.

Jessica Steed said...

We don't know, exactly, but he has been having random fevers for the last few weeks.
It's probably just a virus.
Anyway, he's better. We just got back from a Hemophilia Family Camp.
I'll post pictures pretty soon.