I was really looking forward to today, as it is one of the two days each week where I am free of obligation while the boys are in school. A week ago I got Thursday, but it was at the expense of Tuesday: Connor was sick Monday and Tuesday. And in one of life's little ironies, that Monday kids at his school were in testing, so that would have been a day I wouldn't have volunteered.
The week before that there was a teacher's planning day on Friday, so no school. And the day before that, "my" Thursday saw Gary staying home from work because he didn't feel well. Next week is spring break: one week for Connor, and two for Scott.
Guess it's obvious that I'm not alone today.
Scott was restless in the night, complaining of being too hot. Gary: "Do you think he has a fever?" "Well, I don't know; he usually sleeps hot" (please let it be that he's just sleeping hot, please, please, please). Scott got up to use the toilet and threw up. I tried to take his temperature, but I couldn't get him to keep the thermometer back, under his tongue. He held it in his front teeth instead. I quit taking it before the alarm rang, when I saw that he did have a temperature that was above the threshold for keeping him out of school. He complained of headache; I gave him ibuprofen.
Which brightened him considerably. If he'd been behaving the way he is now, cheerily hyperactive, huge appetite, and talking non-stop, I'd probably have sent him to school (without a temperature, of course). It's probably an artificial bump up from the medication. Guess I'll know in about 6 hours. In the meantime he's fully active.
And I just feel...really down. Not a very good sport.
I remind myself of managed care health insurance, the kind that's "capitated". That means, the plan allows for a certain amount of services and money to be spent per patient per year. Whatever is left over the provider gets to keep. What this has done is set up an incentive to not treat, because the parties involved have come to think of the money as their money.
Just as I've come to think of school days as my time.
Poor Scott deserves a mother who is not plunged in the doldrums at the thought of spending a sick day home with him.
3 comments:
Oh dearie me, you and me both! I had a good old moan about insurance that other day, and although mine aren't sick, they're both nocturnal at the moment so my brain is completely fried. Similarly although we have short days at the moment for parent teacher conferences so I have 'no time,' but any second now they'll all be on Spring Break so there'll be even less time.....I think hibernation is the only solution for me.
Cheers
I don't have to try very hard to feel your pain.
How frustrating and just icky. No good way to resolve.
I hope he feels better soon.
Can you pull back on the volunteering?
I so dislike when I can't give easily when I really NEED to.
XOXO, Excavator. May a windfall of You Time come your way soon. In a good way, of course.
Lori and Maddy--Thanks for not telling me I'm a wuss. I sure feel like it sometimes. I feel terrible that I saw the day through my own disappointment and not his need. Later, though, when the ibuprofen wore off (and it DID wear off) it was clear his need was real--funny how that made it a little easier. I'm even sanguine about him being home tomorrow. (But maybe only because it's a half-day anyway)
The volunteering I do is so bare-bones, it's embarrassing to think even that's too much for me. Wuss.
Thanks, Lori..Grin, I can just see you knocking on wood when you said that about You time coming 'in a good way.' I can hardly wish for anything anymore without looking uneasily over my shoulder, wondering about the 'unintended consequences'.
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