Easy ramen and what happens to a 7-year-old when his mother doesn't figure out he has strep throat for four days

Strong Jawline (text message):
Please don’t put unpopped popcorn into the garbage disposal

Jenny:
Oh shoot! OK. Sorry. What does it do?

Strong Jawline:
It has to be pulled out one colonel at a time
It’s a major military operation

*

It starts on Tuesday night with a sore throat HE SAID AT THE BEGINNING HE HAD A SORE THROAT. In the morning, he also has a runny nose. You, evil incarnate, send him to school. In the afternoon, his teacher calls you, always harried, always kind.

“Gargantubaby says he has a sore throat,” she says, the sounds of second graders in the background.

“Can the nurse give him Tylenol?” you ask.

“She’s not here today,” the teacher says. “I’ll send him to the office.”

You call the school secretary, whose son is in GB’s class, who calls the nurse. The nurse says she can give your son Tylenol parent-to-parent, not school-to-parent, so she texts you and asks your permission. You give her permission.

On Wednesday night, although someone in your stupid family has lost the thermometer (probably you because you’re the only one who uses it) and you haven’t gotten a new one since obviously that’s Your Job, it’s clear GB has a fever. He’s so hot. He says he’s nauseous. You, evil incarnate, give him more at-home medicine, this time Motrin.

On Thursday morning, after GB wakes up so many times asking for water to soothe his painful throat THROAT JENNY THROAT that you eventually have to get up to refill his cup, you realize this is it. You’re awake. It’s 5:30 a.m. You make a cup of tea and watch The Handmaid’s Tale in bed next to your hot, sleeping, sick child, not totally hating this. You’ve had a cold — you’re assuming this is what GB has — and things are shitty so far, so after calling him in sick, you call yourself in sick; your manager understands.

When GB wakes up, you give him more Motrin. Almost immediately, his little head chickens forward and you shoot both hands below his chin, creased together, and catch every drop of white Motrin vomit like a boss.

GB mostly sleeps and accepts cinnamon toast. He tries to eat half a bagel but barfs the whole thing up on the kitchen table. He sleeps a lot — a lot — and when he’s not sleeping he’s looking pathetic and holding his stomach and loitering in the bathroom gazing at the toilet through half-closed eyes. You scrub the shit stains that aren’t yours from under the toilet seat so your son can have something not disgusting to vomit into, which he doesn’t end up doing. His eyes are droopy and he sleeps more. You, evil incarnate, start a blog post about the benefits of having a sick kid because of how much TV you were able to watch right when you got off work yesterday at 6 p.m.

You text SJ, who is working a union job until 12 a.m., to ask if he can watch GB the next day while you drive to the East Bay for an eye appointment. He can’t, because the other kid has a doctor’s appointment. You text the neighbor to ask if he can watch GB for a couple hours the next day. The neighbor says yes.

At bedtime, you notice GB scratching his lower back but don’t think anything of it. Probably bug bites.

During the night, GB asks for water a lot.

On Friday morning, you realize your son has a rash like a sunburn from his neck to his toes. It looks exactly like the rash you got on day 4 of taking Paxlovid so you’re convinced he’s allergic to Motrin, since this is the first time you’ve given it to him. You feel the first fingers of panic that your son will stop breathing at any time.

You cancel your eye appointment and cancel childcare with the neighbor because you would be late to work anyway and then have to figure out where to work in the East Bay that your laptop won’t have security issues and the whole thing is too complicated and plus your kid is going to stop breathing at any time.

You Slack your manager that although you were up with your sick kid last night and will be at home with him today, you can start on time because you canceled your doctor’s appointment. She expresses sympathy because she’s been there with her own kids and says you can take time to rest today and you are reminded that even though change is incremental equal rights in this country have come a long way.

Although you’re on shift and it’s the Friday slam, you use your Garbage Healthcare to connect with an advice nurse, an incompetent human you keep reminding yourself is trying to help, who takes 20 minutes and 300 questions to tell you to call GB’s pediatrician. In the meantime, SJ stirs honey, salt and lemon into some warm water. GB drinks it and keeps it down.

“That’s amazing,” you say, muscling past your desperation that SJ has done something that seems to work when you have done nothing, especially since you can tell SJ is really fucking proud of himself. “Where did you learn that?”

“A documentary,” he says nonchalantly.

You go to your spreadsheet of your healthcare providers and all the different fucking websites and apps you have to use to access care and after getting shafted going through your phone and laptop you just call the goddamn doctor’s office number and someone answers. You schedule a virtual visit.

Almost two hours later, a doctor with a fun outer-space background asks you and GB the same questions the advice nurse asked, except she asks if GB has white spots in the back of his throat. You look. You really look. He doesn’t have white spots in the back of his throat. You say no. Halfway through the appointment, SJ comes down from his computer and sits down next to GB and wants to review what’s already been covered, a good quality in a person. When the pediatrician asks about the barfing, you tell her GB can’t seem to keep liquids down.

“He’s not puking up all liquids,” SJ says. “He’s puking up some liquids.”

You stare at the computer screen.

“He pukes up the Motrin,” SJ goes on. “He doesn’t puke up the electrolyte mix.”

The doctor asks about the rash. She asks if it’s on his face. You say no, his cheeks are flushed, but it’s not the rash — the rash goes from his neck to his ankles. She says the rash is not an allergic reaction, which lifts the anvil off your lungs. She says it’s the last gasp of a viral infection. This you can live with.

During the night, GB asks for water. Half-asleep, you give him water. He barfs it onto the bed. You’re awake now. You turn on the lights, strip the sheets. This isn’t normal. His lips are dry. He’s so hot. You remake the entire bed. You give him water and he barfs even more. It’s 5:30 a.m. You wake up SJ and tell him you think you should go to the ER.

You strip the bed again. GB is shivering. You fill the bathtub with warm water and scoop in baking soda, like the advice nurse said. It makes the water silky. SJ makes more of his stupid electrolyte mix. The internet says to let GB soak in the baking soda for 40 minutes. You have to work in a few hours. SJ says he’s got it. You go back to bed.

You start your Saturday shift at 9 a.m. You warn your co-worker you’re a zombie. Benjamin Netanyahu is threatening to reinvade Gaza right after confirming a peace deal, Trump is threatening to detain 300 immigrants in Chicago the day after his inauguration, LA firefighters are getting a reprieve from high winds. It’s not a busy day but you can’t get a pace going after your kid wakes up at 11:30. At first he seems better, drinks a little water and keeps it down. You ask if he wants a smoothie. He says yes. You have never been so happy to make someone a smoothie. You get out the yogurt, frozen fruit, peanut butter, oats, cinnamon, oat milk. You blend. You hum.

“Mommy,” Gargantubaby says when the blender stops. “I didn’t say I wanted a smoothie.”

You stare at him.

“I asked if you wanted a smoothie and you said yes,” you say.

“Oh,” he says. “Well, I don’t remember that.”

You ask if he’ll drink some of it anyway. He says yes. He drinks a little smoothie and then stares at the wall.

“You’re not hungry?” you ask anxiously.

“There’s just too much peanut butter in it,” he says.

“I can fix that,” you say. You pour out some of liquid, add fruit and oats to bulk it out and make it less peanut-buttery.

“What about some frozen cherries?” you say brightly.

“Yeah!” he says.

You blend some more, although you’re not quite humming. You pour the reblended smoothie back in a cup. Gargantubaby takes a sip and stares at the wall.

“It’s lumpy,” he says.

“Lumpy?” You look at the smoothie. It’s not lumpy.

“Do you mean you feel lumpy?” you ask.

“No,” he says. “I got a bite of peanut butter.”

You put the smoothie back in the blender and blend it some more. You really blend it. You really, really blend it.

“I just don’t feel like eating anymore,” Gargantubaby says when you place the cup back in front of him.

“OK,” you say, and you make him some toast he doesn’t eat.

When his dad gets back with ginger ale, GB drinks a little and keeps it down. Then he drinks SJ’s special electrolyte bullshit and keeps it down. You give him some Motrin. He barfs everything up.

“SJ,” you say. “He needs to see a doctor.”

“I think we can wait it out,” says Strong Jawline, Medicine Man, maker of all-healing electrolyte mix.

You hesitate. You don’t want to go to urgent care. And you can’t be the only one with an instinct. Strong Jawline is his parent, too, and although SJ is mostly wrong, he is not always wrong. And it would be really fucking convenient for SJ to be right this time.

Then you think about the wildfires of 2018 and how on a red day, SJ was so annoyed that you asked him to keep Gargantubaby indoors when he had plans to take him to a pier with a friend to fish for halibut, that you let him take him out — and only later learned about the dangers of toxic air on infant lungs. Although it took years, Strong Jawline admitted he’d been wrong.

“I disagree,” you say.

It’s Saturday, so the pediatrician’s office is closed. You hate doing this — YOU HATE IT IT’S $200 OUT OF POCKET WTF — but the urgent care in Glen Park is the only place GB ever gets immediate, good care, so you go through their electronic bullshit and get another virtual visit.

When it’s time for the appointment, your co-worker who has gone off shift comes back on to cover you. You didn’t even know he was there, he just pops up on Slack and tells you he’s got the Middle East blog and the homepage so you can focus on your kid. You, Gargantubaby and Strong Jawline sit in a line on the couch waiting for the video visit to start.

A doctor comes on. She asks some of the same questions as the first doctor, including about the barfing. Again, you say GB isn’t able to keep much down and has barely eaten in days, that this morning he drank water, the stupid drink I guess we’re calling “the electrolyte mix” now, and Motrin, then barfed it all up.

SJ interjects to clarify that GB only barfed after he took the Motrin, and did not barf after drinking the electrolyte mix.

The doctor asks about the rash and you tell her that you have realized it actually is on his face, that the redness on his cheeks is part of the rash. She says that unfortunately, she recommends taking him in to urgent care, so he can be swabbed for strep and checked for dehydration. DEHYDRATION. She’ll make sure he gets a prescription for an anti-nausea pill, and says she’ll call me when the swab results come back. She gives us her cellphone number A DOCTOR WE’VE NEVER MET GIVES US HER CELLPHONE NUMBER, which starts with 773.

“Are you from Chicago?” I ask. We bond over the city and I tell her about the immigration raid coming her way.

She calls back in an hour.

“He has strep,” she says.

So.

I had strep when I was a kid. Multiple times. Whenever anything was wrong with me, including strep, my parents picked up a phone, called a number, talked to a human being they knew, and made an appointment for that day. When I had strep throat, I got to stay home from school for a day and my dad would go out and get me strawberry Sucrets. Strep always felt like swallowing glass at first, but I felt better pretty soon.

Whenever anything is wrong with my kid, it takes me an hour to figure out how to contact someone and I may or may not be able to get him seen outside of an urgent care. When I call a nurse line, I have no idea who the fuck I’m being connected to and whether they’re even in the same state. They definitely don’t know me or my kid and can’t see him. This leads to me feeling hesitant about just picking up the phone and trying to find him care, on the off chance he’ll just get better and we won’t end up having to pay hundreds of dollars for subpar, anonymous care for something like strep throat.

But. Also. My kid had strep for four days before we got him antibiotics. He had strep so bad he had a high fever (I assume), nausea, vomiting, and a full-body rash. He wasn’t eating and was barely drinking. His pee was dark yellow. His lips were chapped and he was lethargic and he had chills.

So I’ll just take myself out to the porch and wait for CPS to come pick me up.

(I deleted the post I started about how amazing it is when your kid is sick because you can watch lots of TV.)

I’m lying in bed with Gargantubaby, who still hasn’t eaten much, but has taken amoxycillin, Zofran and Tylenol. We’re reading Highlights and finding all the shapes in a drawing called Capybara Hot Tub.

SJ comes in to get his speaker. He leans over to feel GB’s leg.

“You’re still hot,” he says, sympathetically.

“I gave him some Tylenol,” I say. “You know,” I say to Gargantubaby, “I bet you’ll be hungry tomorrow. You finally got all the medicine you need. I’ll make us oatmeal. Something warm and hearty.”

“I was going to make oatmeal today,” SJ says. “Oatmeal’s a good idea. Or yogurt.”

“We’re out of yogurt,” I say, remembering the smoothie that nobody ate.

“Yogurt is good to take with antibiotics,” SJ says.

“Why’s that?” I ask, against all my instincts.

“It helps rebuild your gut flora,” says Strong Jawline, Medicine Man, then takes his fucking speaker and leaves the fucking room.

*

The reviews are in:

SJ: Awesome. A searing indictment of American healthcare — and me.

*

I might be a bad parent, but I am going to be a good mother-in-law. You’re welcome, future women (or men, or both, or none, or all) of America.

*

Once I figured out how easy it is to make ramen at home, I got into the habit of keeping certain things in the house. You need:

• Ramen noodles (Costco sells these)

• White miso, although I could get into some red miso (I get a big tub at Whole Foods one of the three times a year I go there)

• Tofu (Costco)

• Seaweed sheets (the hardest thing to pin down – I finally just bought some on the internet). This is the ingredient that I will not make ramen if I don’t have it.

• Sesame oil (hard to pin down for cheap – Whole Foods has it but I really need to just go to the Asian market in the Portola district)

I also add:

• Mushrooms (I have a partner who loves mushrooms and goes to the farmers’ market)

You need to:

• Put a big hunk of white miso in a pot of water and smush/stir until it dissipates. Use a little bit more water than the amount you want to slurp. I love a lot of broth so I always up the amount of liquid a soup recipe calls for. Bring to a boil.

• Drop the ramen in the boiling water.

• Cut the amount of tofu you want to eat into cubes (EXTREMELY SATISFYING TO CUT A BLOCK OF TOFU WITH A CHEF’S KNIFE OH MY GOD). The tofu in this picture is leftovers that were lovingly cooked by SJ, but when I make it myself I just dump it in raw.

• Slice some mushrooms (get the dirt off first).

• Dump in the tofu and mushrooms.

• Once the ramen is cooked, pour the whole thing in a really big soup bowl.

• Tear two big sheets of seaweed paper into rhombi. RHOMBI. Drop them in the soup.

• Finish with a drizzle of sesame oil.

The whole thing takes maybe 15 minutes. REMEMBER: Ramen is like pizza or pasta – you can do it however you want. You can put a fried egg in there, or a soft-boiled egg, or furikake, or soybeans, or spinach or some other kind of green, or hot sauce (I got a fancy chili crisp for Christmas, but you can’t beat Laoganma or Tương Ớt Tỏi, which I just found at Grocery Outlet, and I put a whole lot of noodles on a fork, scoop on some hot sauce and shove it in my mouth EAT IT EAT IT EAT IT WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE).