Just Another Day

As I sit here typing, my skirt is half damp, half dry.  My kids are talking to themselves in their beds, hopefully heading to sleep soon.  And I'm trying to remember to laugh at myself (and my life).

Let's back up...

Sometime in May, I think it was, I received a work email stating the need for me to make an appointment with Employee Health to have blood work drawn by August 28th.  Maybe your work health insurance is similar?  If you jump through some extra hoops, you get a major discount on your insurance.  For me that discount is $30/pay period, or $780/year.  I can think of a lot of things I'd rather do with that money than give it to my health insurance company.  Keep that figure in mind...$780.  One of the hoops is having blood work done through Employee Health.  In May I thought "Oooooh I have plenty of time to get that appointment done before August 28th!"

You can guess where this is going.

August comes and I haven't made that appointment yet.  Last Friday (August15th), I got another work email stating that day was the last day to make these type appointments for blood work at Employee Health.  I immediately called them.  It was 5:02 pm.  The vmail message I reached said they closed at 5:00 pm.

Dangitall.

I left a message anyway.  Over the weekend, I emailed a lady in Employee Health as well, hoping for the best.  (skipping a few parts of the story here for brevity's sake)  Appointment lady emails me back and says be there at 9:30 am on 8/20.  They will try to work me in around other peoples' appointments.  (translation: be prepared to wait)  But hey, woohoo!  I have an appointment!  $780 Here I come!

I decided to take my kids with me.  Not because I love sitting in waiting rooms with a 3 year old and a 1 year old, but because my parents have already done a LOT of babysitting this week and I thought they could use a break.

Also of note, I have to fast for this appointment.  No breffiss for me.  Bummer.

This morning (appointment day!) I got up, dressed and got the kids up and dressed and fed.  I packed a to-do bag with some toys, my ipad, a couple of diapers, and an almost empty container of wipes. I don't know for sure if they were done eating or not when I plucked them from their chairs and tossed them into their car seats.  Off to the appointment we go!

9:19 am we pull into the parking garage.  9:20 am, while making our way to a parking spot on the 3rd floor, I hear Reese throw up.

WOMP WOMP WAAAAAAHHHHHMP.

"Mess! Mess!" Reese squeals. "Where's Reesey's bucket?  Where's Reesey's bucket?" James exclaims.  (I give him a bucket to throw up in when he gets sick.)  Since Reese is rear-facing still, I can't see the mess, but I can imagine I'm about to have SO.MUCH.FUN. when we pull in to park.

I wanted to just turn around and go home.  Forget the appointment.  Forget the 10 people I'd bothered (part of the story I skipped) to make this appointment happen today.  Forget the $780.

But I couldn't.

I was determined to make it.  I'M GOING TO GET MY BLOOD DRAWN TODAY DANG IT.  (perhaps I was hangry?!)

After parking, I grabbed my meager stash of wipes and head to Reese's side of the car to assess the damage.  She holds her hands up "Mess."  I said "Yep, you're a mess.  We'll fix it."  To keep you from throwing up as well, let's just say the volume of material on her wasn't so terrible.  Her shirt was soaked, but the entire car seat wasn't, thankfully.  The content of the material?  Bacon.  So much bacon.  I wiped up what I could, using up all my wipes.  I prayed nobody would poop during the next little while.  I put Reese in a stroller, hoping to minimize her interaction with anyone else and contain her messy self.

About that time, a coworker (#1) walks by and says hello.  I immediately told her Reese threw up so she could keep her distance.  She told me Employee Health was a zoo right now, so best of luck to me.  Oh yay.  Fun fun times.

With my sights set on $780, I walked towards the building, one hand holding James' hand, the other trying to drive the stroller while holding a wadded up pile of bacon vomit wipes, eyes peeled for a garbage can.

Found a garbage can, and proceeded on to Employee Health.  I don't even know what time it was at that point.  To be sure it was after 9:30...

Trying to open the door to Employee Health was challenging because of a) the stroller I was pushing and b) the crowd of people inside the waiting area.  Holy Moly.  Here comes me, my faintly-bacon-smelling stroller child, James and I...hoping to find a spot in the waiting room.  At this point I was reeeally hoping a lot of things:

1) Reese doesn't throw up again.

2) Reese isn't really sick, but maybe just car sick, so I'm not exposing everyone to some vomit bug, because $780 or not, that's just RUDE to everyone around me.

3) That we aren't in this place for hours and hours waiting.

4)  That nobody notices the bacon smell.

In the first 20 minutes, Reese has asked to get down 50 times and I've gone through all the toys I brought in our bag.  I busted out the ipad for them to watch a show.  Two seconds after their show started, they call my name as well as three other names.  They took us down the hall to another waiting area.  At least there were less people in the next room.  We waited maybe 15 more minutes before they called my name.  The appointment lasted 10 minutes or so.  I got weighed (yay!  who doesn't love getting weighed!), blood pressure taken (114/64...hypertensive for me...I blame my stressful morning), and blood drawn, all with Reese and James watching attentively.  I think James (and his constant motion) made the lab tech nervous.  She got him a chair to sit in, probably hoping that would keep him somewhat contained.  I agreed with whatever she wanted to do.  The last thing you want is a nervous lab tech right before they stick a needle in your arm...

On our way out of the waiting room, we bumped into coworker #2.  She was super sweet to my kids.  I didn't want to announce to her (and the rest of the room) that Reese had thrown up and probably she didn't want to touch her.  Thankfully she just patted her head.  That was probably safe.

We scurried back to the car to make our way back home where there's a bathtub and cleaning supplies and clean clothes for Reese.

At home, I fed them a quick snack and put them in the tub.  They proceeded to have an absolute blast splashing each other.  They made the biggest bath-mess I've ever witnessed in their short lives.  The kinda mess where there seems to be as much water IN the bath as out of it and the tile bathroom floor is down right treacherous to walk on.  This is where my drenched skirt came from.  It was collateral damage.

Now they are in their beds...hopefully asleep by now...  I've disassembled Reese's car seat to wash the cover.  Hoping there's no more vomitousness in my immediate future...

After all this, I better have met the criteria for the $780!!