When I left off my last post, we had decided on Wednesday to leave for a trip on Thursday. We had a rough plan in mind--we knew the beginning and the end, but the middle was the messy part. We had been trying to go to the Jersey Shore, but Ocean City hotels were so expensive. Even Atlantic City was iffy, and I think we just didn't have enough time or energy to research other possible areas that might have worked. Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, came up up in the conversation, as well. That was where Craig and Jacob went with Craig's family when Jacob was three. I didn't go mostly due to work and general mommy exhaustion at the time. Our nephew was supposed to play in a baseball tournament that ended up getting canceled, and they just decided to make a week of it in the house they'd rented. They stopped in Gettysburg along the way, and that's when Jacob flopped off the bed late at night and gashed his face on the nightstand. The rest of the trip continued on to Rehoboth Beach but Jacob couldn't go in the ocean or a pool. I'd heard bits and pieces from that trip and they seemed to like it, so it was something to consider. I didn't love the distance as it wasn't particularly convenient to one of the other planned parts of the trip, and it wasn't much cheaper, but while I was working Wednesday the boys found a decent option. I didn't have much time to look deeply into it while I was experiencing virtual reality for the first time (SO cool) or listening to a prominent donor speak (insightful) or having a fun working lunch at my work retreat day, so I took a quick look and made sure the basics were OK, and let Craig book it. Of course, after a long day that meant a lot of planning and packing to do. Oh, and did I mention that night was a middle school new parent meeting for Carter AND I was dealing with a lot of head/neck tension, as seems to be a weird post-COVID symptom for me. I had it for weeks last year, but this year it's more sporadic. It was driving me nuts that day, though. Could be stress? So after all of that, I rushed through as much packing as I could muster that night.
I knew I needed to be productive in the morning but I ended up waking up so tired that I laid in bed for longer than I wanted to. We were planning on leaving shortly after lunch and I had a lot to cram in. I finished packing clothes, then did toiletries as we finished getting ready, and then started in on all of the other stuff--beach things, travel snacks, etc. I also tried to get in some work because I was on a tight timeline for a few things, and now here I was taking off three work days on a few hours' notice. So I worked through some emails, wrote a letter and sent it off for approval, and finally called it good in between my and the boys' lunches and last-minute packing.
In the middle of all of that, Jacob casually mentioned that the symptoms he had that brought on a pediatrician visit and urinalysis for a UTI the previous weekend were still there, and now he had testicle pain. Like...what now? It didn't seem terrible (it wasn't a sharp, constant pain, at least) but in my brain I was wondering if it was possible the UTI just wasn't strong enough previously and now would be. And then Craig found an article about epididymitis, which is an infection of the tube semen travels through, and that actually sounded really plausible. Since we were headed out of town I wondered if his doctor would just assume it was some sort of infection and just send along antibiotics sight unseen, so I called and left a message for the nurse. When she called back we were about 15 minutes from home and she said she wouldn't wait to get him looked at. Well, great.
We decided to stop at an urgent care 30 minutes from home rather than turn back. We figured if they could diagnose something, we could continue on and make it to the Lehigh Valley Ironpigs vs. Rochester Red Wings game we were aiming for in Allentown that night. We might be late but it was still doable. Well, the UTI test was still negative but the pain was concerning to them so they were still a bit worried it could be testicular torsion, which is usually a genetic thing that allows them to twist freely inside the body and can cause issues. I didn't think it was that since we don't have a family history and he wasn't in excruciating pain, but they strongly suggested we go to the ER since it's a really time-sensitive thing that can cause testicular death, so to speak. I resigned myself to the fact that the baseball game was probably not happening, and we headed off to the ER. I got to be the parent this time, which was actually a first among all the times Jacob has gone. Jacob says I ask better questions, so guess who's the default parent for his stuff now a lot of the time? All of the horrors of the ER Craig and Jacob had shared previously turned out to be true--crowded halls of overflow patients, a motley crew of waiting room patients--it was uncomfortable, to say the least. Oh, and there were a bunch of cops there when we arrived and I think it was because three idiot teenagers stole a car and ended up hitting and killing an elderly driver. I don't know for sure they were there for that, but I feel like there would have been more chaos if the living criminals would have been brought in together while we were there.
Luckily, because Jacob's case was time-sensitive, they put us in a room away from all of that chaos. We hoped that meant it would be quick, but alas...if that was quick, I'd hate to be anyone else. We probably ended up being there for about four hours. Craig and Carter just killed time nearby, first at the UR bookstore, and later getting dinner (Carter ate his first full-size Chipotle burrito!) and Insomnia Cookies.
We just waited a lot--through another urine test, through vitals, a couple provider visits, getting a roommate on the other side of the curtain who had stomach pains previously diagnosed as reflux, a long wait for an ultrasound, and another long wait to be transported back to the room and released. We eventually started looking at my old blog posts of our various trips to Pittsburgh to compare seating locations and recall certain memories, which was sort of fun until we got transported back to our room. Ultimately the ultrasound showed nothing of concern, so that was good. It seems like epididymitis was the suspicion. It seems it could have come through his previous week's mystery virus and just happened to settle there. The bacterial cultures didn't show anything, so that seems likely. Hopefully the symptoms will be gone within a couple weeks, so yet another viral waiting game begins. This exhausting, brutal summer continues. It seems now we can't go out of town without some sort of weird, last-minute medical emergency, three times over now. What the heck?!
As a side note, the whole thing felt so surreal. I mean, for one, I had already just sat with Jacob for an ultrasound the previous Tuesday, that one on his heart. And then four days later he's getting another one, and on his scrotum, no less? I mean...seriously. What alternate universe am I living in, and how do I escape? It just seems like one thing after another, after another, and I think I need brake. And let me tell you, it is super awkward to be the mom of a kid with issues in that area. I had to leave the room multiple times for questioning and exams, and then sit behind the curtain for the ultrasound itself. It's not an area teenagers usually talk about with doctors or their mom present, and the whole thing just felt so awkward. I have to say, Jacob handled it like a champ. I hate that he's getting an early lesson in letting go of all shame (not sure I had that until childbirth), but he did well.
Once we were released, we grabbed a quick dinner of our own on our way out of town, about 50 minutes after the baseball game we wanted to go to (four hours away) had started (sob), We headed toward Allentown to at least break up the trip and use our hotel room. We didn't get there until after 1am, so that was rough, but Craig was a trooper and handled it like a champ. I don't even think we stopped, actually, so that was quite a haul. We were in bed by 2am, thankful to be on our way but a little bummed that we had already missed event #1 on this crazy trip.
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