Chapter 32
WHEN I UNSTRAP LILY from her car seat, she feels even warmer.
She’s still screaming as we enter the pediatrician’s waiting room, a cheery orange space filled with colorful posters and puzzles, stuffed animals and books, and kids.
Lots and lots of babies and kids, all coughing and sneezing and drooling on the toys and each other.
Depending on your point of view, this is either a fun place for sick kids or a human petri dish.
With Lily in my arms, I rush to the receptionist’s window.
“Name?” a nice young woman asks. She’s wearing a plastic tag that reads MAGGIE.
“Caroline Babulewicz.” I spell it for her as she types. “B… A… B… U…”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t seem to have Caroline in my computer.”
“Oh, you mean her name. She’s Lily. Lily Harrison.” I don’t know why, but I feel compelled to hold the baby up to the window as proof that she exists. Clearly, I am a woman on the edge.
“Are you her legal guardian?”
“Well, yes. But no. It’s an emergency. She’s crying. I can’t get her to stop. And she has a fever. It was a hundred and two before. It may be higher now.”
“Well, I’ll see if we can—”
“I’m nervous. This is my first baby,” I tell her. “Well, not really my first baby. I mean, yes, my first baby, but…”
I’m having trouble putting a complete sentence together. Did I say I was on the edge? Make that certifiable.
Lily’s screams are disrupting the placid feng shui of the office, frightening some of the other kids, who cry and cling to their caretakers. Is crying contagious? Who knows? The receptionist makes an executive decision.
“Come with me,” she says.
Lily wails all the way down the hall to a tiny room that I hope is soundproof. I lay Lily down on the examining table and try to soothe her.
“Easy, girl. It’s gonna be okay. The doctor is on his way in. Her way in,” I add. “Or maybe their way.” Even under stress, I’m trying to be woke.
“You can get the baby undressed so the doctor can have a look,” Maggie says sweetly. Then she hightails it back to the reception window. To call child protective services? I wouldn’t blame her. I’m clearly a few croutons short of a Caesar salad.
Another glitch: Sometime between the waiting room and now, Lily had an attack of diarrhea.
And the diaper bag is still in the car, where the starving dogs have probably killed each other by now, fighting over the rubber pretzel.
I hold Lily down with one hand and grab paper towels with the other so I can wipe the mess off her tush. Not ideal, but it’ll have to do.
A nurse comes in and gets Lily’s vital signs.
Soon after, the doctor walks in. “I’m Dr. Mangan,” he says.
“And this”—he glances at her chart—“must be Lily.” Stonington is a group practice with several pediatricians.
This doctor has clearly never met Lily before.
That’s okay. Dr. Mangan is bald, calm, and soft-spoken, and seems to be at peace with the world. He reminds me of the Dalai Lama.
“Now, what seems to be the problem, little one?” he asks her as he washes his hands.
“She’s usually such a good baby. The best,” I say. I surprise myself. Did I really say that?
Gently, he feels her belly, listens to her heart, checks her ears, nose, and throat.
“It’s an ear infection,” he says. “And from the looks of it, a pretty bad one. Has she been tugging at her ear at all?”
“Not that I noticed,” I say. I don’t add: Because I was driving like a maniac.
“Ear infections are very common in babies this age. Very painful too.”
“And the high fever?”
“Goes with the territory. I can give you something for that right now.”
“That’s great. I was so nervous.”
“Of course you were. Is this your first?” He turns and types something into a computer.
“Oh, she’s not mine,” I say. I think about that for a moment. “I mean, she’s mine now, but…”
I leave the sentence unfinished.
Dr. Mangan reaches into a drawer and pulls out a small sample bottle of Infant Tylenol, then squirts a tiny drop in Lily’s mouth. She licks her lips and looks up at him with love. So do I.
“She should be on an antibiotic. Is she allergic to penicillin?” he asks.
Oh. My. God. How should I know? “Does it say anything on the chart?” I ask.
He scans it quickly. “Hmm. No allergies listed. She had Augmentin a while back and did fine with it.”
Oh, good.
“But a drug allergy doesn’t show up the first time you’re exposed to it. It’s the second exposure that does the damage.”
“Oh?”
“The first time just alerts the body to an unknown substance. The second dose flags the immune system and tells it to attack.”
“That sounds scary.”
He smiles kindly. “Why don’t we start on the smallest possible dose and see if there are any reactions.”
“Such as?”
He rattles off a bunch of fairly mild symptoms: “Skin rash, hives, itching…”
I hold my breath. I’m waiting for death.
“Wheezing. Maybe a runny nose.”
So far, so good. “Anything else?”
“Well, in very rare cases, anaphylaxis.”
“What happens then?”
“Bronchospasm, face and tongue swelling, respiratory collapse. But really, it’s so rare it hardly pays to discuss it.”
“But if we were going to discuss it?”
He wrinkles his brow as if he’s remembering his old medical textbooks—or regretting that he volunteered to fit us in. “Well, I guess I’d watch for seizures. Maybe a loss of consciousness as the body begins to shut down. And then…”
“Death?” I ask.
He shrugs and nods. I knew it!
Before he leaves, he opens a drawer and hands me a clean diaper and some baby wipes. “Any other questions?” he asks.
“Yes. If, God forbid, she has any of those rare symptoms, should I call you?”
“No,” he says with the calmness of a stranger giving you directions, advising you to turn left at the next light. “Call 911.”