Luckily, the haircut has nothing to do with the ER visit! Just like for Britton, Memaw gave Barrett his first haircut yesterday! Oh, it was long overdue, and his hair had gotten less surfer-cool and more stringy-weird! We didn't want a crew cut, or even that ubiquitous little-kid bowl cut. She didn't take it too short, leaving long flippy layers that look absolutely adorable.
Barrett didn't mind it too much, and Memaw kept him entertained while she whacked away. He was probably more upset about changing his shirt afterwards than he was about having his hair cut!
Shortly afterwards, we went to Emiliano's for lunch. And it was there that Memaw noticed the left side of Barrett's jaw - it was swollen. He hadn't eaten anything new and we couldn't pinpoint something causing an allergic reaction, but just in case we took him to urgent care. We waited there for 45 minutes, until a nurse came out and told us it was either mumps or an abscess, and we should just head over to the Children's Hospital express care.
We went over to Children's, and waited there another hour and a half. The doctor couldn't find the cause of the swelling, and didn't have an ultrasound machine to verify if it was the perotid (salivary) gland or a lymph node infected. So, very apologetically, he asked us to go to Pittsburgh's Children's Hospital's ER. Little did we know why he was so apologetic...
Long story short, we were there for SIX HOURS. And the nurse said that was normal. Ugh. I about lost my mind, and it was truly fortunate that Memaw and PawPaw could watch Britton, because then she didn't have to be there, picking up germs. And the hubs could come with me, so we could trade off trying to entertain Barrett, who didn't have a nap and was up three hours past his bedtime.
We lucked out in two ways - first, the PA had just had a similar case, and two, we got the director of pediatric medicine AND the chief resident to check out Barrett. Turns out the virus that had torn its way through Britton and me had also gotten Barrett, but instead of a hacking cough, Barrett's perotid gland was infected with it. The virus acts like the mumps, thus the swelling. It should resolve on its own over the next week, and Barrett isn't in pain. He just looks like a chipmunk on the left side of his face!
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