Only Nineteen More

I am tired. OK, exhausted. And it is not from my usual sleeplessness. That I can handle. We just spent a tiring 3 and a half hours in the Emergency Room, so converting each hour spent in the ER to regular time, we were there, oh about 24 hours. Yeah so I am exagerating that bit. But honestly, you know how 15 minutes can seem like an eternity in there. Not to mention it was filled with all kinds of people being struck down by this evil virus thing that is apparently highly contagious and nationwide. I know people in Virginia that are sick with it, so it must be covering all of the states by now.

Anyhow, we went because Clare has been more congested than normal, so I figured it was beyond just her allergies. This morning she sounded as though she was going to suffocate she was so bad off. By tonight it had gotten worse. And she is not a person who is especially keen on blowing her nose, so you can imagine the drama created from that. So, 8.30pm rolls around and we, meaning Greg and I, mutually agreed to take her in. Regardless that is was a wednesday night, they were packed. And filled with people suffering the aforementioned evil virus thing. After a considerable wait and giving up on colouring, and taunting me with her loose tooth, Clare was finally called to the back. Where we waited some more.

During that wait, however, Greg was encouraging her to taunt me further with the now-hanging-on-by-a-thread loose tooth. At which I felt nauseous, then glanced at her before she had stopped the incessant wiggling and saw some blood. Lovely. I knew she would panic. But they have all kinds of small supplies in each cubicle there in the back of the ER, so I grabbed some packages of gauze. I knew what was coming. She let her dad pull the tooth out. At which point I was happy I was sitting down, because I really and truly felt faint. Plus I have never seen blood coming from my child bar a few paper cuts that were miniscule. I felt quite dizzy and when Greg held up the offending article (said tooth) I really REALLY felt dizzy. But I somehow managed to pull it together since Clare realised blood was indeed coming from her mouth and began to cry. But only for a second, we diverted her with looking at the lovely, shiny pearl-like tooth.

The doctor finally came back, assessed she has an upper respiratory thing happening, and gave us liquid Motrin and sent us on our merry way. Which was a huge relief as we wanted to get home. Greg had been up since 3am and off to work, then once we did get home at midnight, he is going to get 3 hours sleep before getting up and returning for another 12 hour shift. He is a trooper. He disagreed, telling me there will be plenty of coffee made in the morning.

I'm just glad the saga of the very first tooth to be pulled out is over and behind us. Now, only nineteen more to go!

Speaking of teeth.......Talk about a dog with an attitude!Here is Aoife,our younger Jack Russell, after losing a few milk teeth last October.