For the last three months O has had a small red raised dot below her eye. From the angel kiss she was born with to the eczema she had due to her allergies with dairy, O has a history with skin issues. She's a fair complected child, thanks to her Irish freckled dad, so when this popped up, I didn't think too much about it, until today.
This morning she woke up with another red dot below her nose and she told me this one hurt. To top it off she's had a cough for a while. As parents, we all have a threshhold of how long we wait before we see the doctor. I had finally reached mine today. I couldn't help but wonder...what if it's MRSA (a strain of staph bacteria that does not respond to some of the antibiotics used to treat staph infections)? This of course escalated to...What if she has to be quarantined? We have 13 people coming for Thanksgiving...we may need to cancel. Oh, but we've already ordered the turkey. And then, of course, the poor "my little girl" thoughts entered in once I got beyond the entertain obstacles imagined.
My mind immediately went to the only horror story I knew about MRSA. My girlfriend Erma's husband had MRSA. It started as a red raised spot on his cheek which looked like a zit. He kept popping it and it kept getting bigger. He started covering it with a cotton ball soaked it in alcohol and covered it with a band aid. Rumor has it he tried every zit cream imaginable and when he that didn't work he tried toothpaste to dry it out.
Erma kept telling him to go see a doctor. He wouldn't. The extended family began to taunt him about the cotton ball and band aids he wore all the way to Easter brunch. His almost- teenage girls were so embarrassed by the sight of his covered up wound, they didn't want him at their sports games.
Finally, after a few weeks, he gave in and went to the doctor where he was tested and it was confirmed he had MRSA. Erma threw him in the basement where he was sequestered until it healed. He was forced to do his own laundry, eat by himself off paper plates, drink out of paper cups and watch TV by himself until it healed. It's said that they communicated through an intercom system when their cell phones were dead. Erma bought VATS of hand sanitizer which the entire family used incessantly.
Now, post-MRSA, he is the biggest germaphobe I've ever met. He always has some sort of sanitizer with him and he can ramble off the best brands, types and ways to apply...tri-closan gels, alcohol based gels, alcohol wipes, essential oil based, anti bacterial soap. He is a wealth of knowledge about hand washing and hand sanitizing. He knows how to remove hand sanitizer from furniture and how to start a fire with it, which can come in handy when camping. I'm surprised he hasn't gone to work for the Center for Disease Control!
So this morning, I called the school and without telling them about MRSA, I told them I was taking her to the doctor to get a couple of dots on her face checked out. The school secretary wished me luck.
We arrived at the doctor's office very soon after they opened. I mentioned to the receptionist that we didn't have an appointment, however, O had some dots on her face that I wanted a doctor to look at. Before today I knew our doctor's office had three waiting rooms...one for the sick...one for the well...and one for the infants. However, this morning I came to find that there happens to be one for the quarantined. That's the one we were rushed to until a doctor would see us.
One of our favorite nurses came in to get O's weight. She usually has a hug for O but not today. I could only conclude that she, like me, thought my daughter had MRSA too! We were brought into one of the offices to wait for a doctor as our regular doctor wouldn't be able to see us due to his busy schedule (and the likelihood of getting MRSA himself). He must have seen us in the hallway and before long he was standing in the door asking why we were here. As he asked, he checked O's chart.
We have been through a lot with him. O's first year of life brought RSV and the 10 day Rhoda virus. His Argentinian greeting is always one of love...a kiss on the cheek for me and one on the forehead for O.
Today I received the usual kiss on the cheek, O received a smile. Oh no...it appears he, like me, also thought my daughter had MRSA too! Anti-MRSA-ites abound.
The doctor arrives. She gives a thorough examination. GOOD NEWS! It's not MRSA! In fact it is nothing but a broken capillary and a fever blister. I wanted to shout it from the highest mountain!
When I dropped off O at school, I so wanted to jump up and down and yell, "She doesn't have MRSA!" However, I thought better of that idea and after saying goodbye, I headed home.
I was meeting Jackie for lunch in Georgetown so I pulled down the mirror to put on some lip gloss. There it was...a big red bump on my chin. Oh please tell me it's just a pimple. Wait! I'm forty. I don't get pimples. Call Erma! Call the doctor! Kindergarten SUCKS!
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