Neurosurgery follow up

I took Charlie back to Lurie today for his neurosurgery follow-up. To start off the day, we took the wrong train line, putting us, oh, 3/4 of a mile further away from where we needed to be. So once we finally got there, the boys were wired and sick of being in the stroller. The nurse weighed him and got his vitals and took us to a room. The resident whom we had seen in the ER came and saw Charlie and was pleased with his behavior and his noggin. Charlie was grinning as big as he could at him. Then Dr. Bowman came and checked Charlie out. She agreed that he looks wonderful, so they deferred imaging today and will just do it when they would normally do the release-of-service films at 4 months post-injury. She said to just pop in for the images and call her and we'd review the films together. I truly like their team. The aspects I've seen of Lurie Children's (ER, radiology, 19th floor, outpatient clinic, and all of the secretaries and escorts) have absolutely blown me away. Their customer service is awesome, the places I've seen are impeccably clean, everyone is so precious with the kids, and they are some brilliant folks. The nurses quote studies they've read regarding radiation exposure, medication risks, and outcome statistics. The whole operation is impressive.

After we left, we went to meet Travis for lunch since we were only like 6 blocks away from his work. We had Qdoba and then parted ways. We got to the closest red line at Grand, and I needed to reload my transit card. The credit card machine wasn't working, so the police officer just let us go through. How nice!! He probably had a message from God of how horrible my day was about to turn out.

We stopped off at the grocery store on the way home because so said Jack, "Clarabelle (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse) told me to make cookies, and we need sparkles to make our crowns because you're my princess, and you need a princess hat." How could I argue with him? Charlie fell asleep while we were there.

Once we got home, Charlie woke up, naturally, and it got pretty rough after that. The shortest possible version is that neither of my kids would nap, both screamed and cried all afternoon, Jack had bad potty accidents, potty stopped up and overflowed for unknown reason, mommy cleaned bathroom and tried to fix potty while screaming kids made a complete disaster of the rest of the house. It was NOT pretty. I'm pretty sure I used the s* word in there, too, because, to be really honest, when it's up to your calves and elbows while your kids are screaming, bad words just come out. The next thing I remember was crying on the phone to Travis saying that I just want to go home. As if toilets don't overflow in Mississippi. Dramatic.

But you know what? That not-so-handy man of mine came home and saved the day. With all his might, he plunged the living day lights out of that commode, and when I heard that flush I screamed with joy. Then he cloroxed every single square inch of my bathroom. We're still laundering the linens in the ultra-hot-heavy-wash setting, but the worst is done. It took us 3 hours with the windows open to air out the Clorox from the apartment.

We're both absolutely exhausted. And so I must say goodnight.