Outnumbered Two to One

Yesterday afternoon I received a call from the Kindergarten around lunch time, actually it was more like toddler nap time, which as you know is a very inconvenient hour. It seemed a certain five year old boy was running a fever and sporting a frightening rash on his face. The lady who called, the nurse I’m guessing, sounded pretty spooked, like my son had some sort of devastating plague and I needed to remove him from the premises ASAP.

I immediately called the pediatrician, set up an appointment for both boys (since my toddler was suddenly looking like he’d been in a slap fight with a teenage girl), boarded the minivan, and headed out to the school.

The boy, my son, was apparently being quarantined next to the soda machine in the teacher’s lounge. When I got there, he emerged grinning ear to ear. A school day cut short is always a treat, duh. Problem was when I put my hand to his forehead, he wasn’t even a little warm, maybe room temperature, possibly tepid, but not fever by a stretch. Whatever. He was looking a little flushed in the face, so we headed to our doctor’s appointment as planned.

It didn’t help that I hit possibly every red light on the way there and ended up driving below the speed limit as I tailed every single elderly chauffeur in south Florida.

Luckily we got to the doctor’s on time. I dutifully payed my $40 co-payment to get the educated opinion of a certified medical doctor. Luckily there was no line, no waiting. Seriously, there was nobody waiting, maybe people are self diagnosing to save themselves a few bucks during the holidays, but apparently pediatrics is seeing a slump. The office is usually wall to wall people.

We walk in, get weighed, get registered, get put in an exam room. Two minutes later the doctor walks in. The exam goes something like this.

“Mmm, hmm, mmm, hmm, mmm, hmm. Yes, it’s definitely Fifth Disease.”

Heh? I was thinking it was an allergic reaction, personally.

“It’s a common viral infection caused by parvo. It’s benign, there’s really no treatment for it and there’s no vaccine for it. It should clear up on it’s own.”

Hand shake, hand shake. “Have a great holiday.”

Seriously? I paid $40 for this? We weren’t even there twenty minutes.

He then hands each of the boys a shiny gold token and walks out. They were not for Chuck E. Cheese as I originally thought, but a prize given so they could retrieve a bauble from the mini toy machine in the lobby.

The boys were delighted. They each got a 20 dollar one inch green plastic alien toy in a clear plastic egg.

Apparently 20 bucks will not get you as much as it used to, either that or my doctor is saving up his co-payments for a ski trip to the Swiss Alps.

On the bright side, it only cost me $25 to fill my gas tank. At least it was less than a pointless trip to the pediatrician’s.

Fer sure.

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Update: After some research last night I did discover the boys are no longer contagious after the rash breaks out. They were probably spreading it around about a week ago when they had no symptoms other than maybe a runny nose. The bad news is we car pool to school with my pregnant neighbor and her little girl. While normally the virus is harmless, it could pose complications to her unborn baby, so she’s going to have to get a series of shots from her OB I believe, from what she told me this morning. I felt terrible, but then again there really isn’t much we could have done. Since the kids have been sick on or off since starting Kindergarten, it was impossible to know what they were incubating until the rash finally broke out. Bummer.

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