A Series of Unfortunate Events

At the Smith house, there is usually little cause for major drama. Things usually roll along pretty smoothly, with only an occasional crazy moment here and there. However, in the past couple of weeks, we have experienced more unexpected surprises than we usually have in an entire year.

I will start by telling you about the adventure that occurred at the tee ball fields a couple of weeks ago.... UGH! Major has occasional minor allergy issues. We notice that his allergies usually flare up a couple of times a year, for a couple of weeks at most. He was prescribed Singulair a couple of years ago by his pediatrician, but only takes it during a few weeks of the year. We have noticed Major's allergies flaring up when we are out at the tee ball field or when he breathes lots of dust or is in an environment with excessive pet dander.

A couple of weeks ago, Major was having a little bit of trouble with his allergies. He was sniffling and coughing at night, so we decided to give him a dose of Singulair. (This was on a Friday.) On Saturday, he was supposed to play two tee ball games. During his first game, he ran around the bases once or twice, then complained to Josh that his heart was beating fast. Josh jokingly said something to him like, "That's what happens when you exercise, Major." or something along those lines. Josh and I discussed how much Major likes to run/be active and how uncharacteristic it was of him to complain about his heart, especially when playing such an inactive sport as tee ball. Josh decided to take Major's complaint seriously and proceeded to check Major's heart rate. Josh compared Major's heart rate to the heart rates of the other boys on the team and noticed that Major's heart was beating extremely rapidly. (Josh clocked it at 180 BPM.) I FREAKED out. Josh was calm, as usual. I was about to fall apart. You could see Major's little shirt moving up and down where his heart was beating so quickly. Though we have never taken any of our children to the emergency room and generally take the wait-and-see approach before rushing them to the doctor, we both agreed that quick action needed to be taken.

Josh called his friend, Jonathan, who is a cardiologist, and asked what should be done. At Jonathan's recommendation, we first sat Major down in front of the television (a sedentary activity) and waited to see if his rapid heart rate would go down. It did....barely. About three hours later, his heart was still beating super fast. Jonathan's recommendation was to take him into the ER...just in case. Off we went to the ER. They ran every kind of test on him. All of the tests came back negative. Their diagnosis was that "some kids just don't know when to stop running and exert themselves too hard" at that this was related to his mild allergies, breathing difficulties. I wasn't buying it. I don't think that running around bases twice would accelerate his heart rate for 8 plus hours. Ridiculous! We didn't really know what to think. Their diagnosis seemed inaccurate. They told us if it ever happened again to come back to the ER. I told them that $1500 was not chump change for us at that we would rather have an alternate plan in case this happened again.

Anyway... to make a long story short... we were very thankful that the tests were negative and, after some research and advice from other medical professionals, came to our own conclusion. We now think that Major's super fast heart rate was related to his dose of Singulair. We can't prove this with certainty, but have decided not to expose him to this drug again, just in case... People's bodies react differently to medicines. We were informed that new studies came out recently in which some people complained of their children exhibiting signs of high blood pressure and rapid heart rate after taking Singulair. I know that Major falls in the very lowest of percentiles. I know that most children have no issues with taking this drug. Major just happened to be one of the unlucky few whose body responded in a negative way to this drug with "hardly any side effects". Josh and I now feel that Major can deal with the sniffles. Of course, should Major need medicines to function, we would be sure to give him the medical care he needed. I much prefer an occasional cough here and there to a continuous rapid heart rate, though. That was just so scary! This was trip to the ER #1.


Second drama happened last Friday. We were finished with our school, so I took the kids up to a local mall for a fun day out. We spent time looking around, talking, having fun, and buying a few necessary fall items for Major. When we were all tired and ready to leave, I reached into my purse for my keys and discovered that they were not there! My pregnant brain strikes again!!! I backtracked around the mall to all of the stores where I had been. Nobody had seen the keys. I went to the customer service desk. They hadn't seen the keys. I walked out to the car. There were my keys. They were sitting there on the console, right in my view, but just out of my reach. The car was locked. I asked the mall if their security could open my car for me. They couldn't. It was against policy. :( I finally had to call a locksmith. I asked information for the closest locksmith to my location, and, with one bar on my phone, proceeded to call and try to hire a locksmith. I asked was quoted a fee of $39 service charge and $15 to open the door. That was about what I expected. I gave them my location and the go ahead to come out and open our car. When the locksmith arrived, 45 minutes later, he told me, "Now that will be a $39 service fee and an $85 fee to open the door. Sign here." Ummmm. No.

I said, "This was not the price that you quoted me over the phone."

The locksmith (Pete) said, "Well, the $15 was just a minimum. After that, we have to charge for gas. It took us a while to get here, so we had to charge you a bit more."

At this point, I was a little miffed. I don't mind paying people for their services, but do not like being taken advantage of. I think that I must have looked like an easy target....a big pregnant woman with two small children. I said, "I think that you were a little misleading. You didn't tell me that you were going to charge me extra for gas. I don't think this is right at all. I think that this is a poor practice, telling people one price over the phone and then asking them to pay more than double the amount." I wasn't rude, just frank.

I felt a little sorry for Pete. He was a young man in his early twenties. He clearly was not the brains behind this operation, just an employee who was doing what he was told to do. It was clear that he felt bad about what he knew was a scam and rotten way to treat people. He said, "You are not the first person to complain about this. Lots of people feel misled. It really isn't right." Then he gave me two papers to sign before he could open my car. "My boss makes me have people sign these first." The papers said something like "I have NO complaints towards this company. All charges are indisputable." I thought the fact that their contract included these lines was very telling. Don't you?

I took the pen and scratched out "NO complaints" and wrote in "ONE complaint" before I signed it. HA! That gave me some satisfaction. I wrote him a check. Less than a minute later my car was opened. I'm thinking of reporting this company to the Better Business Bureau. What a sham! But....things could have been worse. $125 later we were able to go home and finish out our day. I was so frustrated with myself for being so dumb as to lock my keys in my car. I have NEVER done that in all of the years that I've been driving.

Okay, thank you for bearing with me if you are still reading... The last of our recent dramatic events occurred this past Monday night. I had just gotten back from our church ladies' retreat on Sunday night. I woke up Sunday morning with a Charley horse. No big deal. I was a little concerned when my leg continued to hurt throughout the day on Sunday and continued to ache on Monday morning. I thought it was probably nothing, but called my doctor on Monday morning, just to be sure. I probably wouldn't even have called had this been my first pregnancy, but, as I had never had a leg pain like this, I called just to check. The doctor's reaction was not what I expected. They said that it was possible that I might have a blood clot in my leg and that I needed to be seen. Guess where they suggested I go? Yep. The ER again.... :(

I waited until Josh got home from work and asked him what I should do. He suggested I call my brother, who is a doctor, and ask him what he thought I should do. My brother's reaction was similar to my doctor's. He told me that most likely, it wasn't anything serious, but it COULD be, so I really needed to be seen that night. So... off to the Emergency room we went.... Thankfully, we have never had a reason to go to the ER, in all of the ten years that we've been married. Neither one of us were looking forward to the HUGE bill that they would present to us, but realized that it was important to get this checked out...just in case. We were thankful that the leg pain was nothing more than a super severe Charley horse. We were very thankful that God protected us from what might have been. The huge bill that we will receive in a few weeks will be minor compared to what we might have had to deal with.

Anyway...it is funny how things work. We've gone ten years without any trips to the ER. Then, in a two week time period, we have made two trips. We feel very blessed that these were just minor scares, that nobody had any serious problems. We are hoping that we have a relatively drama-less time throughout the next couple of months.

I am SO looking forward to Halloween this year!!! Mary Alice's costume is finished and is SO fun!!! I think it is my favorite costume ever! Major's is a work in progress. It is somewhat of a disaster, really. I have a few more weeks to try to make him look like his intended character instead of like the Flying Nun. :( If all else fails, we have some white sheets in our linen closet to make a good old fashioned ghost.

Have a great week!