July 28th, 2008
Of lost voices and Poison Control
I lost my voice this weekend. I haven’t spoken above a whisper since last Friday night.
Backstory: Woke up the day before BFF with a sore throat. Thought, “Fuck you, sore throat,” and pressed on. By Monday Oliver had one too and mine hadn’t gotten better, so we got checked out. Diagnosis: virus. Oliver got better, I didn’t.
I got worse. By the time Friday night rolled around, I was feeling pretty shitty. My throat was sore. Ridiculously sore. I had a feeling a visit with a physician was in my near future, and when I woke up the next morning I knew there was more than a virus going on in my throat – that fucker was infected. It was like, fire in there. Swallowing was like eating syringes. My chest was burning, my mouth hurt and my neck, good grief, my neck felt gigantic. It was all throbby, like it had its own heartbeat. I had to touch it, just to make sure it was a normal size, because I felt like Henry Rollins.
So I got up slowly. Washed my face, popped some Tylenol and sipped a cup of coffee, hoping that I’d feel better as I woke up, but I didn’t. I just felt worse. By eleven I was in the shower, because even though I was just going to sit a clinic waiting room and share germs with sick strangers, one glance at my head revealed what side I'd slept on that night. And, contrary to popular belief, I do have some standards.
“I have a really sore throat,” I croaked when the doctor asked me what was wrong. “Actually, my entire mouth hurts.”
He nodded as he peered down my throat with his light saber thingy. “You’ve got quite an infection,” he said, adding that not only was my throat infected, my vocal chords were, too.
I walked out of there with a prescription and strict orders not to talk for the weekend. Did you know that whispering and talking are one in the same? You may think you’re doing your throat a favour by whispering, but guess what, sucka? You’re not.
(An aside: It’s been interesting, not being able to communicate with my children primarily through speech. Not only have they had to actually listen to me, the three of us have used a lot of gestures, facial expressions and body language in order to convey thoughts, something that I found quite intimate. I felt closer to my kids, more connected; it made me realize how much can be lost in language and the depth of what we can convey without actually speaking.)
By the time I got home I felt like my neck was going to explode. Dave took Oliver out for a bit, and thank god he did, because I took complete advantage of being down one kid. I popped Julia some corn, put a movie on and promptly fell asleep on the couch beside her.
I got up when Dave came home, not because I wanted to but because Oliver could smell the popcorn from the mailbox and NEEDED a bowl RIGHT THAT VERY SECOND lest he BURST INTO FLAMES. I got a bowl from the cupboard, put it on the counter and motioned for Julia to fill it, pointing at the bag by the toaster. While she did, I got a pill and was going to get some water out of the fridge when I noticed her struggling to get the popcorn out of the bag. As I reached over to help her, my pill slipped from my palm, fell on the floor and cracked in two.
And Oliver, quick as fucking lightning, snatched up one half and shoved it in his mouth.
For a few seconds I was completely frozen. I could see the other half of the pill on the floor and I zoned in on it before I picked it up. There was this part of me that thought, Okay, chances are that this is a dosage that will not harm my child. BREATHE. The other part of me was a stunned sort of panic: Holy shit. That was bad and it happened way too fast.
My reaction was moderate panic. Moderate escalating panic.
“No! NO! Oliver! NONONONO!” I yelled.
“What?!” Dave shouted from the den, at the same time Julia screamed, “MUMMY! You’re TALKING!”
I crouched down and shoved my hand under the oven, slid it across the floor. “Did you eat it?” Jesus, he ate it. It happened so fast. I grabbed hold of his wrist. “Oliver, love,” I hissed. My throat was screaming. “Did you eat the pill?”
Dave was crouched on the floor beside me and we stared at our son, who was starting to get upset. He had a funny taste in his mouth, he said, and could he have a bottle of water?
So Dave called Poison Control. My Voice of Reason was right, the dose was small, too small to cause damage. At the very least, he’d have a stomach ache later on. A large glass of water was advised and, with absorption in mind, we gave him something to eat. But he was fine; completely unaffected. He ate dinner, packed back half a jumbo Freezie and ran around the backyard before bed like a little tornado.
It stayed with me for a while afterward, that incident and my thoughts about it. He picked up that pill so fast, so quickly. I didn’t see him put it in his mouth. I saw him reach for it and I saw the sour look on his face after he’d bitten down on it, but I didn’t see him put it in his mouth. It happened so fast. That seems to be the running theme with my son. He’s active, he’s busy, he’s curious and mischievous. He has no fear, throws caution to the wind; he’s rough and tumble. He’s a blur in like, half the pictures we take of him.
He happens quickly.
