Almond Butter

Having a day to reflect and gain a little perspective, I realize that my post on Thursday was a wee bit melodramatic. While I do fancy a good rant, I'm not typically much of a drama queen, so what I wrote was somewhat out of character.

Or maybe not.

I can, on occasion, whine with even the most accomplished drama queen.

Thursday just happened to be a very long day.

It started with a trip to the doctor because my child, who was FINE, spiked a fever Wednesday night. Again, everything looked fine upon examination, but the NP we saw suggested a chest xray.
As it turns out, the xray showed that Caroline has pneumonia. You'd think a kid with pneumonia would look, act and feel sick, but this was not the case with Caroline. It's a trifling, puzzling, baffling situation, if you ask me.

So, we waited all day for the NP to call in a prescription; she wanted to confer with a pediatric pulmonologist at Walter Reed to determine the right medication. Finally, she called the house and talked to Craig, telling him that a prescription was being put in the computer. She then said something about taking the medicine twice a day for ten days. I did not talk to her, so this is all information Craig relayed to me.

Being that I'm a professional conclusion jumper, I immediately assumed that she had prescribed Augmentin, which is a derivative of amoxicillin. Caroline is allergic to penicillin, and any medicine in the "cillin" family for that matter.

Now here's the thing about the military health care system: if you have a question regarding your care, you cannot just call up the doctor to ask a question. You have to call the appointment line and leave a message for the care provider. They then have up to 48 hours to return your call. This really squashes any hope for a good patient-doctor relationship, if you ask me. I shouldn't complain because the quality of our care is decent...and it's free. And on a side note, considering the "Obama Care" hack job plan that our representatives in Washington are putting together, we're mighty fortunate.

In panic mode, convinced that the NP had just prescribed my baby a red itchy rash in a bottle, I called the appointment line in hopes that I could convince them to let me get through to the nurse line. I'm not proud of this, but I cried on the phone. I didn't mean to, but I was completely frustrated and worried that I wouldn't be able to get through to them before the office closed at 4:30. And if there is one sure thing in the Army, if the office closes at 4:30, they are out the door at 4:30. The woman on the phone had great pity on me and got me through to the nurse.

As it turns out she did not prescribe Augmentin.

I panicked for nothing.

And looked like a total moron to boot.

Eh, it's not the first time.

So off I went to the pharmacy to pick up the medicine.

Guess what? They were out of it.

I went to CVS.
Again, out.

Evidently this isn't a common antibiotic in liquid form.

Wal Mart was next.
Nope.

The lady at the first CVS told me to check a larger CVS. So I called Craig and he looked up the directions to the store for me.
Thankfully it wasn't far away, but it was 6pm. Evening traffic is horrific and I was smack dab in the middle of it.

Not only did I have to go to multiple pharmacies, I was also faced with a time constraint.
The pharmacy at our hospital didn't have a hard copy of the prescription....and it was after 4:30 so I couldn't get it from the NP, because like I said....it was past quitting time and they were GONE.
I needed to find a pharmacy that had the medicine in stock before our pharmacy closed because they needed to verify the information over the phone.

After waiting in line for 20 minutes, I was relieved to learn that they did indeed carry the medicine. She took my info, called our pharmacy and told me to wait an hour.

And wait I did.

I ate frozen yogurt and went to Trader Joes.
This also happened to be the night that Michael Jackson died. While I perused the aisles of Trader Joes, they played really old school MJ as a tribute. It was nice shopping music.

I read all kinds of healthy eating/exercise blogs and the chicks that write them are all in love with almond butter. In most stores, it's super expensive, but Trader Joes had it for $4.99.
Ever eager to join a popular bandwagon, I bought some.

And, it's........ok.
I think it needs salt or maybe some sugar.

I had some with honey on a Kashi waffle and that was tasty, but it's not that great by itself.

Nothing beats a spoonful of creamy, ever so slightly salty and sweet Jif.
Jif actually has a natural pb out that tastes great, but it's hard to find.

I'm just a simple girl, I guess.

Caroline has been forced to rest for the past two days. She is on the mend, not that she was ever really out of it.
I wish I knew why a really healthy kid would get pneumonia twice in a nine month period.
She's going to see a pulmonologist for a check up, so maybe we'll get an answer.

I hope it's just a fluke.