i'm living on adrenaline and gummi bears and it's working for me!

What's up, bitches! I am flying high tonight for no reason other than a calm and soothing pediatric hematologist. I woke up this morning and made responsible phone calls to insurance and looked up pediatric hematology. Then I made the realization that all these pediatric hematologists are actually pediatric hematologists-slash-oncologists.

Ohhhh.

I called and they didn't have anything until February, then I told them today is Miss A's 9th yes NINTH day of fever, and they made us an emergency appointment at 10:30.

Oh. Again.

By the time we arrived at the hospital I was fighting off a panic attack. Luckily the staff in a pediatric hematology-slash-oncology department are clearly well trained in bedside manner, because everyone was ridiculously nice and I want to be friends with them. But only outside of work.

The doctor himself soothingly told me that there are some rare metabolic disorders that affect the way B12 is synthesized, so he first wants to test those metabolites. (Or something.) Then if that comes back looking normal, we will check her blood every so often for a while to see if things even out. Then if they don't, we do a bone marrow test just to rule out myeloproliferative disorders, which are pre-leukemia conditions. He said this all so reassuringly that I felt calm and awesome and not at all like, "Wait if the metabolic disorders are so rare that there's little on Google about them but leukemia isn't especially rare, what do those stats look like for us?" And "But what if we can't rule them out? And where did you go to PR school because you are amazing!" I didn't feel those things until later. But I feel pretty sure the metabolic disorder is going to be a win. And I am assuming it is easy to treat and fix, and therefore feeling pretty good.

Then the nurses there applied numbing cream to Miss A's forearms so she wouldn't feel them collecting her blood. Blogworld, this is a minor miracle. Miss A did not do well with her first blood draw, since her lack of contact with reality gives her superhuman strength. It's like finding yourself on another planet with less gravity, so you're like a superhero. That's Miss A, except substitute "reality" for both "planet" and "gravity."

Then after her second blood draw she started to pass out in the parking lot and Jason had to carry her to the car, and she's talked about it every 15 minutes since. So the prospect of a third blood draw wasn't appealing to anyone. But oh my gosh this numbing cream!! The nurse said I can ask my primary care guy to write us a prescription for it and then apply it myself at home. If only I had easy access to my brain. Anyway, the needle didn't hurt but Miss A got woozy afterward anyway for about an hour.

The nurse also said no news is good news, which was soothing indeed since I was supposed to get a call about some of the blood work today (and didn't) and other tests are supposed to take up to a week. Sigh. So, now we wait.