There is no Scarlet Letter

After days of an ill existence, a new symptom reared its ugly head yesterday. Rather, I in my Sherlock Holmes' hat (and no, I don't really have one which is saddening) discovered a rash on my Bailey. Who knows how long it's been there. It's most likely new, and according to Bailey it was new, but we've been so sick, I can only assume as such, and well, I hate assuming. Anyhow, there was this rash and after its discovery, I called the doctor's office because maybe coughing and mucus and vomiting and fevers (oh my) don't interest them, rashes do. They were on Crackdown Sorority mode, otherwise known as triage, so you only got in if you were the prettiest sickest according to their panel of qualified judges. Luckily, a rash got us through the qualification round and our foot was through the door, well, once we made the forty-minute trek.


The doctor wasn't convinced it was a strep rash, which was why we made it through the triage round in the first place. It looked viral (well, I'll take her word for it) and she tested the redhead for both influenza and strep. I had no idea there was an official influenza test! First off, I only go to the doctor if I'm dying or need antibiotics to keep me from such, so I haven't been around such nonsense. (I'm sorry, I'm all for research but it seems like a waste of money to test for something that is like testing and saying, "well, your test came back positive for the common cold.") Keep in mind, again, I'm not one of those who goes in for nothing or to the ER every time I slice a limb or my child falls or coughs. If I did, that would be a lot, and well, in my mind, unnecessary. Please forgive me.


So, they test for influenza by forcing a stick up each nostril. Bailey was not amused, but they didn't give her a shot or draw blood, which I promised they wouldn't. They also didn't give her a cup to pee in which has her traumatized from her 4 year well visit. I will never forget "DON'T MAKE ME PEE IN A CUP! I WILL NOT PEE IN A CUP! I DON'T WANT TO PEE IN A CUP!" Highly embarrassing but also great cocktail party conversation, especially if she ever gets married. She added influenza testing to her list of Things Doctors and Researchers are Not Allowed to Do To Me and then it was time for the strep test. (We're about to run out of things they are allowed to do and I tried explaining to her this is mild in comparison the parts of your body they invade later in life.) I had to help hold her down for this to take place because Bailey was not going to let anyone take anything else from her body. Apparently she's rather attached to her nasal tissue and snot or something and anything in the back of her throat. After a bit of work and lots of screaming, both tests were incubating, or whatever it is that they do. Then we waited.


And waited.


The lady in the lab quickly exited to our doctor, which told me something was up and then we got our escort immediately back to the room, which definitely told me something was up. We've been down this route before, other times she had...





Strep. Which, made me wonder what she had this time around.



Yep. It was strep. And it was strep even though the doctor kept shaking her head in disbelief telling me, trying to convince me that rash IS NOT a strep rash (a.k.a Scarlet Fever, which back in its day was a scary illness, in the days where it left poor Mary from Little House on the Prairie blind and now to the present where it's just a rash from strep and worthy of a prescription), so various things must be wrong with our little tot's body right now, but even though it IS NOT a strep rash, she does have strep. The way she behaved, you'd think I didn't believe her about the rash and I did. Because one of the times we took Bailey in with enlarged tonsils, it came to be she had strep, and later we discovered her tonsils were enlarged anyway, but had they never been enlarged that night, we wouldn't have taken her in because she had no other symptoms. We would have never known, at least not right away. So I'm not doubting her at all about the rash (which IS NOT from strep), I'm just glad for those timely coincidences. After all, they wouldn't have gotten her in without the rash, or as I like to call it, the Scarlet Letter.

There may be no true Scarlet Letter, but it got us through the judge and jury and on the road to recovery; at least Bailey is as I am STILL no closer to my cure.