EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS...

Here in Arkansas, when we have winter storms, everything shuts down and you can’t go anywhere (it doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, everything stops for a day or two). They have been predicting a winter ice storm and/or snow, so last night after Neil got home from work, he asked if there was anything I needed from the store, in case we were stuck at home. I hadn’t thought of that, but I was out of bread and a couple other things. So, after dinner, he headed to the store to get those essentials. Well, when he got back, and was bringing in the groceries, he was chuckling and said, “I took good care of you!” Well, as it turns out, he bought a couple loaves of bread, along with 3 bags of candy, some nuts, some pop, and the ingredients to make chocolate chip/butterscotch oatmeal cookies (our favorite). WOW! We were prepared all right—prepared for a party! At least if we got stuck and ran out of food, our kids would be so sugared up, that they wouldn’t care!

Well, as it turns out, those treats came in handy today. We didn’t get an ice storm or snow storm overnight, so the kids headed to school as usual. However, about a half hour after school started, I got a phone call from the school, saying that Jonah wasn’t feeling well, and he had a slight fever. He has been coughing all night long the past couple nights, but no fever, and he seemed fine during the day, playing and eating as usual, so I sent him to school, thinking he was fine. I figured that he just has a cold and is more uncomfortable at night.

Anyway, I managed to get an appointment at the doctor’s office at 9 a.m. (I was lucky that there was a cancellation, because most of the doctors were booked today). So, I got there at 9:00, signed in and waited, and waited, and waited some more! I HATE, HATE, HATE going to the doctor for that very reason! Well, finally about an HOUR after our appointment was supposed to be, they took us to a room. Then we waited and waited and waited some more. FINALLY, the doctor came in, listened to Jonah’s lungs, looked in his throat and ears, and said Jonah had bronchitis, and was going to put him on an antibiotic, along with an albuterol inhaler, and a steroid inhaler, but he wanted to get some blood work (just from a simple finger prick), to check his white blood count to see if he was going to put him on an oral steroid as well. Well, we waited and waited and waited some more, until the nurse came to get the blood, then she said it would be a little while to get the results (IMAGINE THAT!!). So I walked to the pharmacy, there in the clinic, and bought Jonah & Clay a snack, and then went back to WAIT some MORE! After they got the blood work back from the lab, we went back to the exam room once more, and…you guessed it...WAITED! Then the doctor came back in and gave us our prescriptions. So, we headed BACK to the pharmacy, and waited another 20 minutes for Jonah’s prescriptions, before FINALLY heading home!

So…after spending 3 HOURS and $125 at the doctors office, not to mention being tired from being up all night, 2 nights in a row, I was a bit grumpy (but the boys were great, and very patient, waiting all that time)…but thank goodness I had some YUMMY treats to make us all feel better. You know, chocolate is supposed to release endorphins, right?! Well, with all the chocolate and candy in our house, we should all be very, very happy. It’s a good thing Neil was so prepared!! So, let that be a lesson to us all, that emergency prepardeness also includes CHOCOLATE for those unexpected "emergencies", when you need an endorphin lift from a grumpy mood!