Inner Cleansing

Katy’s catch-all for all upsets is a tummy ache. Her tummy hurts when she is frustrated, tired, bored, not interested in following directions and when she is stalling for time at bed (although sometimes she has growing pains to forestall her nightly tuck-in). An aching tummy can mean she is experiencing a grief wave or that she ate too many grapes. This has been such a standard of hers that I almost pay no attention anymore to the physical and skip immediately to Nancy Drew mode to ascertain the true problem. So, it should come as no surprise that occasionally, the kid really is sick. Like the time she complained of a tummy upset before bed and awoke us later at 3 or so in the morning announcing she had “pukey tummy”. She made it as far as the top of the landing outside our door before spewing on and off the rest of the two flights to the bathroom on the main floor (god, I miss my en suite). Last week, her aching tummy turned out to be a bladder infection which I would have missed entirely had she not inadvertently mentioned that it hurt to pee. You would think she’d have brought this up in addition to the tummy ache, but her gut overrides all things most of the time.

Wednesday, she played the tummy card again when I picked her up at the child-minding after my workout. I had to carry her to the car after she did her dramatic belly clutch and walked bent over a few staggering steps as we headed down the hallway for the parking lot. And before you waste too much concern, she wasn’t that sick or in that much pain - she just didn’t want to walk. After I had her buckled into her booster, the interrogation began and by the time I was near the four way by the shopping centre, I had made up my mind to take her back to the walk-in clinic. Her tummy - interestingly - suddenly hurt a lot less.

We have been remarkably healthy since coming to Canada. Given that an average winter had me floored with sinus and bronchitis most of the last several years and that Katy was averaging one whooping cold and an ear infection as well, I would say we have stumbled upon some sort of health Shangri-La up here. This is a good thing because like just about everything else service wise up here, doctors are in short supply, and those who are practicing seem to be able to do so on a part-time basis. Rob’s doctor - who I am seeing now - is a kindly old Chinese man who probably should be retired and works a greatly diminished schedule in an office next to a pizza place in a strip mall (I kid you not when I say you find doctors and dentists in the oddest places up here). I would have taken Katy to see him but the wait can be hours and there are, curiously, no nurses working in his office - just receptionists. It’s a little weird. I took Katy back to the Walk-In Clinic which can be quick or long depending on the staffing, which varies without rhyme or reason, and the various viruses going around. Fortunately, our flu season seems to have abated up here, so we were able to get in quickly.

Last week Katy saw one of the younger doctors. There are two, a man and a woman. My younger step-daughter Jordan looks older than both of them and Jordan could pass for a high schooler without much trouble. Wednesday though we saw the older gentleman who is easily older than Rob’s rather old Chinese doctor. He was fairly certain that Katy was suffering from constipation and wanted to do a quick rectal to confirm. And no, that didn’t happen. There is one thing I never need worry about and that is that my daughter will ever unwillingly have sex. That girl can clamp her two little legs together in a death-like vise. So, off we were sent to the local hospital across the way for a tummy x-ray.

Katy has had x-rays before. Last spring when Rob and I were in Arkansas, she was staying with my folks and caught Influenza-B from my nephew and it turned into pneumonia. That was a long 12-hr drive back I can tell you. Katy had not forgotten what an ordeal the x-rays were. She had been crying and of course for a chest x-ray you have to hold still and hold your breath. A crying four year old, sick and wanting her mommy, is not the best direction follower. She started crying before we even had her up on the x-ray table and she cried all the way through (I am hopeful that the days of using her tummy as a catch-all are over with this experience). Needless to say, I peeked at the x-ray as we were leaving to go back to the clinic and I even could tell she was - as Rob said, chuckling when he heard the news - “full of shit”.

Ironically, Rob and I have been planning to do one of those “cleansing kits” and after the last two of days of fruits, smoothies (laced with prune juice) and pretty much nothing but veggies, I am wondering what might be left in us to “cleanse”. Kate is not cleansing as easily. She balked at the Sennekot after day one to the point that she willing drank a half a glass of prune juice to avoid another dose, but her Valentine’s party at school was nothing but a sugar feast and it probably will come out a wash.

Just when you thought I couldn’t be more TMI.