the very air i breathe is saturated

As Christmas vacation begins to draw to a close, the tightening noose of coming work is beginning to chafe against my neck.

The e-mails are still trickling into the BlackBerry, each little “tinkle” sound reminding me that I can never really get that far physically removed from a job that happens primarily in cyberspace. Unseen responsibility surrounds me, floating around invisible right in front of me, waves and signals buzzing silently around my head, needing only to be read and decoded to transform them into questions I need to answer and things I need to do. It’s sad, in a way, that the very air I breathe is saturated with invisible bits and bytes that represent the work I have to do. Let’s not think about it, OK?

We had a brief scare yesterday, ending up in the emergency room with Keaton. As I mentioned in my last blog, she’s been running a fever now for a couple days, and it’s been sitting around 101° for most of the time. After Sharaun put her down for her nap yesterday, she went out shopping. And, since Keaton wasn’t feeling well and likely needed sleep, I was happy that she chose to take a longer-than-usual nap, not to mention it gave me a little time to rest-off the pukes-‘n’-poops I’d been dealing with myself. When she finally did wake up, I got her some Tylenol-doped juice and sat down with her while she drank it. As she was finishing up her sippy, Sharaun got home and joined us on the couch.

Just then, she began to shiver, which I took to mean she was breaking her fever. As Sharaun took her from me, however, she began to shiver more, and we noticed her lips looked a little blueish. Freaking out a bit, Sharaun took her out to ask her mom if she could see the blue as well, and I jumped online to search for “baby blue lips fever” on Google. The modern sage that is Google said that if, during a fever, a baby’s lips and/or fingernail beds turn blue, you should seek emergency care immediately. Meanwhile, Sharaun and her mom had reached the same conclusion, as Keaton was still shaking, not speaking at all, and her lips (and finger/toenails) were now an even scarier shade of blue-purple. They were already strapping her into her carseat as I rushed inside to grab my wallet, sling a very hastily put together diaper bag over my shoulder, and slip on some flip-flops.

With the hospital literally just up the road, we were there in under a minute. But even by then, she had regained nearly all her color and was starting to talk normally. We sat in the emergency room for about twenty minutes, every passing minute of which I became more convinced that she was now fine, and then were ushered in to see the triage nurse. After taking her vitals, she pronounced Keaton A-OK, and asked if we’d still like to be seen. Faced with the prospect of spending four hours in the hospital, or going home and keeping an eye on her ourselves, we chose the latter and packed back into the car. And, although she continued to run a fever the rest of the day, we had no more blue-lipped scares, and she already seems much more “herself” today.

Frightening, and odd, but I guess ultimately nothing.

Well then, until later, take care peoples.

Also written on this day...

• otters, herons, and fishies - 2006
• gummy smiles - 2005
• down at the end - 2004