Sick and tired

I just realized that the ending of my last post on how much I love my daughter despite all her quirks is eerily similar to the one I posted about our Wirehair Fox Terrier, Trixie. What a horrible mother I am! I knew it felt familiar.

Anyway, to add on to my last post on some of the things I love about my daughter...she doesn't do things halfway! She's an all or nothing kinda gal. Typically, she's healthy as a horse (knocking on wood right now...no really, I am). She's also tough as nails. I always know when she is really hurt or sick, because she's not one to whine and moan unless she's in serious pain. In fact, when she was almost two, she tripped and fell down on concrete. It busted her lip and knocked one of her front teeth almost completely out. We had to go directly to the dentist who pulled the tooth. She didn't cry once. The dentist was so amazed at how good she was that not only did he not charge us, but the ladies in the front office gave her a little wooden dog that they had in the office for decoration. I take a lot of pride in her being such a tough cookie. I may have failed her at every other lesson, but by golly, I did do something right. As a toddler, when she fell or ran into something, she would look for me to gauge my reaction and go from there. If I wasn't making a fuss or spazzing out, then generally she would dust herself off and go on. So I perfected my nonreaction (which incidentally, went against all of my instincts at first) and I've never had to guess at whether or not she's really hurt or sick. Don't get me wrong, she's full of drama in other areas, but not this one.

Back to our current situation... Last week, she was complaining about back pain. Apparently, she was playing touch football at camp and got tackled by a boy who was two years older. She landed on her back, and it had been bothering her ever since. Friday evening, she also started complaining about an earache for the first time in her life. (I guess she's done pretty well to get to 9 years old without an ear infection). So when she woke up Saturday morning and was in tears because of her back and ear, I immediately called the doctor who told us to bring her right in. (How convenient that her doctor's office is open on Saturday morning!) So it turns out that she has strep throat (what? She hasn't even complained about her throat), swimmer's ear and we're still not sure what's going on with the back. He prescribed a muscle relaxer, which doesn't seem to help the pain, but does knock her out. I'm trying not to give it to her too often, because she's taking so many other medications (antibiotics for strep throat, 2 adult motrin around the clock, ear drops). He sent us in to have her back x-rayed this morning, so we'll see how that turns out. If the pain is not gone by Wednesday or Thursday, he'd like to do an MRI. Bless her heart! She can't swim this week at camp, can't roughhouse with Daddy, can't do anything too strenuous at camp. She's a trooper, my girl! And apparently? She's decided to pack a year's worth of illness and injury into one week.

ETA: It looks as if we will be returning for MORE x-rays tomorrow. My daughter will be thrilled. Apparently, the x-rays were of the lumbar spine and the thoracic sp? spine is what he needed to see. Lovely!