Kids at sickbay

VANGIE had the virus more than a week ago, which was about the same time Maxi had – or so we thought.

Turned out Maxi's flu-like symptoms metamorphed into pneumonia which explained why the cough didn't subside. But that's leaping ahead of the story. Mavi, over the past four days, got high fever and also wasn't able to go to school.

So last Saturday we headed to the hospital confident with the thought they would just be given antibiotic prescriptions. Traffic was unspeakable at Edsa and we lost almost an hour on the road which I could have utilized writing a story, and Vangie attending a meeting with her comebacking boss.

Vangie has slipped to the office by the time the doctor saw the girls. The doctor, admitting she's on a hurry to catch her own kid's school program, didn't like the way Mavi looked. ``She looks sick, I might need to admit her,'' the doctor said.

Shen then ordered complete blood tests for both Mavi and Maxi. Urinalysis for Mavi and X-ray for Maxi – procedures to be done in different corners of Makati Med.

The frenetic shifting from the doctor's clinic to the health card to the pathologist lab and x-ray lab and back would have been a breeze if not for the fact that I was tagging along two sick girls. It was already past 4 p.m. and we haven't had lunch after getting stuck in traffic. I was thinking the girls may have been more hungry than sick.

But what the results said floored me. I didn't understand Mavi's blood test results but her white blood cells exceeded the usual (signs of infection, doctors would later explain). Maxi, on the other hand, had something in her chest x-ray which prompted a resident from the radiology dept. to ask me if she ever had contact with somebody who had tuberculosis.

We brought the results to the pedia's clinic only to be referred to the emergency dept., because the girls, they said, just might need confinement. I was by then burning the texting lines to update Vangie.

At the ER doctors were questioning me about the two of them all at the same time.

``When did Mavi's fever begin?''

Thursday

``Did Maxi's cough and colds come with high fever? What's the highest?''

It came with all three symptoms. The highest was 38.5 degrees

``Which one is Mavi?

The one with the pink sweater

``Are they twins?''

No.

Emergency doctors next told me they will consult the girls' pedia and fill her in with the lab results. There was trouble at the Makati Med ER that time because shooting victims were rolled in and there were police officers at the looby. I would usually inquire about it but under the circumstances I let it slide.

Then Vangie came. Her boss still wasn't in so she left a word (later in the evening the office called to say the meeting was reset for the next Monday). Good thing she brought food, it was almost 7 p.m. by then, I wasn't able to leave the girls to buy anything and there was not even a vendo machine nearby.

The ER resident then approached us. We had two options, we could have the Mavi and Maxi admitted and take medications through IV. But since they saw the girls eat and concluded that they never lost their appetite, we could choose to take them home with prescriptions medicines to be taken orally.

We chose to go home. But it didn't go smoothly.

Back home, Maxi threw up the first two times she took her medicine. Mavi thrice, one after another. So all in all I mopped the floor five times before I threatened to drive them back to the hospital and get doctors to prick big needles into their veins.