Yesterday afternoon/early evening, Grant started screaming...SCREAMING. Not just crying, not just mad - but SCREAMING. He was sticking his hand into his mouth while doing so. I started to wonder if maybe he had an ear infection? A sore throat? He hasn't been nursing well the last couple weeks - so I thought maybe that would add up if his ears hurt...who knows, but the inconsolable screaming paired with my sinus/cold thing, mixed with a complete and total lack of effecient sleep had me near breakdown. Of course it was now 4:30 or so....and where are you going to get a Dr. appointment at that hour. So I asked Bailey to watch Lauren while I bundled up the boy to take him to walk-in clinic. We arrived just before 5 p.m.....to be told that walk-in hours don't begin until 6 p.m. (just imagine what happened next......scroll down)...



You got it. I cried. Now he's crying AND I'm crying. Can't someone - ANYONE just take a peek into his ears? Give me the darn ear-looky instrument and I'll see. But noooooo...and of course, since he's a healthy mere 4-month-old...he's never been to a walk-in clinic before...which means he's a NEW PATIENT...and isn't that so much fun. Here's your 1/2-inch thick stack of paper...now fill it out and come back in an hour. (At this point I'm pretty sure I'll need to be seen too...for a script of some sort of anti-depressant).

So I bundled him up again - walked back outside in the BELOW friggin' ZERO temperatures and started driving. I didn't want to go home, unload him, change him just to have to turn right around and come back...so I drove. And thank goodness...he finally fell asleep. He stayed asleep for the duration of my 1.5 hour wait...that's ONE AND A HALF HOURS of waiting...even though I was the absolute FIRST walk-in patient in the waiting room.

So we are finally seen - they make me strip him naked to weigh him (is that really necessary....he doesn't FEEL WELL!)...now he's really ticked off...and hungry now....and I'm very near a breakdown.

We are finally seen by a nurse or a physician's assistant - heck I don't know - but at least she has the ear-looky thing and a perscription pad...good 'nuff. She looks in both ears and says the left one seems kinda pink. Now - thankfully my kids haven't battled ear infections very much - but when they have - it has always been - WOW - that's really red...or....really infected...or fluid in there...something more than "kinda pink." So now I'm pretty sure his problem isn't ears (which is good AND bad)...but she writes a perscription anyway under the theory that it has been going on awhile - and if she's wrong - one course of antibiotics isn't going to make him resistant.

So now I don't know....do I give him the antibiotic? Do I make another appointment with his REAL doctor? Do I assume it is teething and proceed with seeing someone for an antidepressant for myself?

What a miserable evening.