Fun

According to Hunter, he had fun on Saturday.

If you'd been there, you wouldn't have believed it.

For the second time in less than a month, my favorite grandson developed an earache. This is just another in the string of colds and runny noses that have plagued him over the months since school started back up. He hasn't yet learned to blow his nose, so when it gets stuffed up, the problem seems to travel rapidly to the sides of his head.

Poor baby. As Farida and I watched on Saturday morning, we saw the situation progress rapidly. First he started pulling on his left ear. Then when he realized that action had caught the attention of his mom and might culminate in the insertion of eardrops, he tried to hide it. But he couldn't. The more he tried to hide it, the more we noticed. Farida finally did get the eardrops installed, and they made no difference.

That's when we started talking about the dreaded "D" word.

I'm not sure why, but Hunter is terrified by doctors. When Farida, Jason and Hunter first moved up here, I got to accompany Farida to Hunter's first visit to a local physician. The scene wasn't pretty. For some reason it was roughly equivalent to a visit to Santa. Much hysteria.

The last time Farida had to take Hunter to Urgent Care for his ear, the doctor told her that ear infections never go away on their own, so as soon as it was apparent that Big H was on his way to another episode, she knew she had to take him in. He begged. He pleaded. He cajoled. He wheadled.

"No, Mama. No doctor. I don't want to go to the doctor."

As if she were taking him to the executioner.

It made me want to say, "Farida, can't we just wait this out?" But I knew we couldn't. Farida suffered from her share of earaches growing up, and I remembered how painful they were for all of us and how quickly they cleared up once she got treated for them.

Of course once we got to Urgent Care, we sat. And waited. And waited. As we waited, Hunter began to pull on his other ear. In the space of an hour the earache had progressed from one to both earls.

Then the nurse came to take Hunter's vitals. We think he has blood pressure, but we'll never know for sure. She hardly got his temperature. She managed to hear his heart, barely.

Then she took us to the treatment room. Where we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. After over an hour in the treatment room, Farida decided to see if we'd been forgotten.

"You're next," the nurse told her.

So we waited. And waited.

Hunter kept telling us he wanted "to get out of here. Let's go to our house." 

While we agreed, we told him we had to wait. And wait. But then you probably have already gotten the picture. He and Farida walked the halls to pass the time. We talked about birthdays. We counted the spots on the wall.

FINALLY the doctor came in, and Farida and Hunter went through the struggles all over again. Hunter was determined that NO ONE was going to look into HIS ears. Luckily the doctor prevailed, and it took just a few seconds for him to pronounce the verdict:  Hunter has an ear infection. Big surprise. The doctor told Farida he would write a prescription, so again we had to wait.

Back in the aptly-named WAITING room, we waited. And waited. And Hunter fell asleep on his mama's lap before the nurse brought out the prescription and the instructions.

As Hunter dozed, we made plans. I would take the prescription to the pharmacy and pick up the few items she needed from the grocery store while Farida would stay with Hunter in their car. But the moment she got up from the chair, he awoke and muttered something.

"Did you hear what he said?" Farida asked me.

"No," I replied.

"He said the doctor was fun."