My Brave Little Boy

Today’s doctor appointment for CootieBoy was, well, not fun. How could it be fun when it involved lancing three boils, one of which is perilously close to one of the most sensitive areas on the human body? No lie – at one point CootieBoy was foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog. NOT KIDDING.

Gory details follow – click at your own peril…

The doctor checked out CootieBoy’s butt and initially determined that it wasn’t ready to be drained. I then took the large bandage off CootieBoy’s boil from last night only to have about a quarter-size amount of infection come out without even touching it. CootieBoy went to touch it and I freaked and just pinned him down while the doc began working on it. She got out a LOT of infection but it took three of us to pin him down. When pain is at it’s worst, CootieBoy cries, “I wanna go to bed!” thinking that we’ll stop and let him go to bed. Not so at the doctor’s office. I had his arms and head, the doc had his torso, and the nurse had his legs and feet. It was NOT easy. Well, after a few minutes she determined it empty, and slapped a bandage on it. CootieBoy momentarily calmed down, thinking it was over.

But oh no. We pinned him down again, he began screaming about going to bed again, and the doctor began draining the smaller boil on another part of his belly. This one was minor, though, and was done pretty quickly. Slapped another bandage on it.

The doc opted to look at his butt one more time, and in the end she decided to go ahead and drain it. This is when it got crazy. We basically folded him in half, with CootieBoy head against the hip of the nurse, with her arm holding his shoulders in place. She then pushed his legs up into a frog position and basically had him pinned down so that he couldn’t move. I let him hold my hand and I stroked his head while he screamed. Well, he got one leg loose while the doctor was draining the boil, and almost pushed himself off the table – despite being completely pinned down by the nurse. It was CRAZY. CootieBoy face was red, he was foaming at the mouth, and his eyes were turning bloodshot as he screamed for us to stop. After a while the doctor claimed it was completely drained, but we discussed various methods for bandaging and determined that there was just no way to put a bandage on the wound. So she recommended a couple of baths tomorrow as well as a couple on Thursday if we can swing it. Then a bath everyday after that for about a week.

Once we let go of CootieBoy he stood up and just wept. Begged for his diaper to be put back on, his shirt back on. So I put him in a clean diaper and then just hugged him for a few minutes while he alternated between calming down and wailing for his daddy. We finally walked out to reception where the nurses took pity on him and gave him a book and stickers for his troubles (he was down to whimpering quietly when Denis called my cellphone and the MOMENT CootieBoy heard Denis’ voice on the phone he started crying all over again in an attempt to tell Daddy what had happened).

The problem now is that his butt hurts to the point where he can’t (and won’t) sit down. I barely got him into the car seat (and even then I had to really loosen the straps to get him locked in because he didn’t want to sit down directly, but rather just kind of LEAN BACK in the carseat). And now that we’re home he can’t sit on the sofa but can only kneel and lean to the side a bit. Poor little guy.

It’s gonna be a disaster. He still has to go to the bathroom, and that’s a TON of germs hanging out by the wound he has going now. But I just don’t see how we can let him go with NO covering on it whatsoever to avoid possible contamination due to bodily functions. Unless we put a bandage of some sort on it and let him go naked for a couple of days (which can’t happen since daycare is open Thursday and they won’t let him run around naked). And even then there’s no guarantee that he’ll tell us when he has to go potty.

Ugh. We’re in for a tough few days around here.