The dreaded swab

Yesterday I picked the guys up from the corner after school. When Theo saw me standing there, on a Thursday- Rebecca's day, his face fell. "Where's Rebecca????" Oh, I had forgotten to tell him that she was not available, and that I had rearranged my schedule at work and then slunk out the back door unnoticed so that I could be home to get them. This did not go over as the heroic tale of sacrifice that it was intended to be. The afternoon and evening deteriorated at a rapid pace. Eli was fine. He accepted me as the substitute caregiver with a touch of disappointment but quickly buried himself in a book. But Theo. He pouted, then fell into a fit of 'victim-tude' as I have come to see it. The world was falling down around him and he whined out a series of affronts that have been his to bare. Often he crumpled into tears, his face just falling- not rage, just complete sorrow. Somewhere in the back of my brain I was thinking, this is not going to end well- this is not the real Theo- something is wrong. But we eventually made it through the evening, and most of the night.
At 5:30 Theo awoke coughing and sniffling, yelling out, "I can't breathe! I am so full of snot!" I got him some kleenex and lay down next to him, accepting his laden kleenexes one after the other for quite a long time. He finally drifted off. In the real morning he awoke and said he was fine, but was still sniffling. Eli had recently been in this same state and a steady dose of Claritan was working wonders on him. So we dosed Theo up. And he smiled- a clingy, feverish smile. I tried to ignore it, thinking allergies. Not swine flu. Allergies. Not swine flu. But allergies don't cause a 102 fever. After talking to the nurse, it was decided that he should come in to see if the strep he had one month ago had reappeared in his trembly little body.
"I am not being swabbed. Not being swabbed. Not swabbed." This was his mantra as he rather obediently put on his shoes and jacket and headed for the car. He had been swabbed the month before and the memory lingered. As we drove north I kept vacillating between relief that there was now a reason attached to Theo's behavior the previous day -he had no resources because a fever had been cooking up inside him- and a little inkling of fear. The fear had several fonts. Written large in this fear was the upcoming swab. Jon got to witness the last one and he still shudders when he retells the story of the fight with the nurse. And in little teeny tiny letters my fear was spelled out as swine flu. How could I not be thinking it? The media was clobbering us with tales- inducing enough panic in me that I put myself on a strict media diet two days ago. But the symptom checklist had filtered through my ban. Fever- check. Runny nose- check. Headache- check. But what are those NOT symptoms for? North we drove- Theo chanting the quiet mantra 'Not getting swabbed." And me sternly telling myself to back away from the cliff. Do not turn on the radio.
In the exam room he was tense and his lips were tight until the nurse said she wasn't going to swab unless the doctor ordered. The relief travelled through his whole body. He got looser, lighter. Then the doctor appeared. Ordered the swab. Theo was sitting up on the bench. He went rigid, raised one clenched fist in front of his mouth and turned his steely green eyes on me. No words. No sound. But no opening of that mouth. I have never seen will quite so defined in someone's eyes. The doctor caught it too, and stopped on his way out to get the nurse. He could tell that this might be a patient who needed the doctor. Theo never said a word in the battle that insued. But the battle was epic. In the end I had his hands pinned and his head tilted back, the doctor forced his mouth open and then went wild with the swabs. Once again Theo's face crumpled and the silent tears rolled. Then he bit down on the swab- realizing that he could halt its awful probbing this way. The doctor begged for their release and finally Theo relented. The doctor realized he had a sample and quickly left the room. Theo's little soaked body melted into mine. He looked up into my eyes and while I cringed, waiting for the attack (why hadn't I protected him? Why had I HELPED the doctor pin him so that the swabs could attack??) he said, "Man, did you see those crumbs on the doctor's tongue?? There were these huge crumbs right in the middle." He was over it. And the test results: negative. Shoot.