MRI

I would not trade the dot for the world.  I would, however, trade her skull for $5 and a lightly used older model.  Heck, you could keep the $5.  For that matter, I’d pay the $5.  Why not?  We’ve already paid about $5000.

In spite of my rather abysmal intracity snow driving skills, we made it down to Billings and back in one piece.  Well, technically in 5 pieces, but each piece was in one piece.

Along the way, I made had my first ragchew just outside of the CMR.  My cute little outdated 50-watt 2-meter managed to reach a good 40 miles to the Zortman repeater, which was in turn being worked by a ham in Great Falls.  Since we were in the middle of a zero cell phone reception area, I conclusively proved the value of amateur radio to the formerly dubious Beloved.  I am officially a ham.

I did not realize how badly my anesthesiaphobia (yes, that is obviously a word, since I just used it and I define reality) extended to other people until they attempted to put the pulse oximeter  on the Dot’s finger.  In an attempt to reassure her that it was okay, they placed it on Daddy’s finger first.  My resting heart rate was 91.  For scale, at my MET class tonight, my resting heart rate according to the cute little Welch Allyn combo meter was 64.  This was when the Beloved declared that I was the one in need of the Versed.

At this point, I should say that shortly before my first wisdom tooth surgery, my dear sainted mother made one of the very few really dumb mistakes in my upbringing.  She told me of a teenage girl who had died about 2 weeks previous from anesthesia complications…during a wisdom tooth surgery.

Really, Ma?  How did that seem like a good idea?

I attempted to take my mind off the impending gassing of my child by cheating to get increased intracranial pressure.  I held her upside down and tickled her for a while, followed by a few minutes in the Trendelenburg position.  Can’t blame a father for trying.

Fortunately, my job was to entertain the Lump while the Beloved waited for the Dot to get to the PACU.  You could say she drew the short straw (sorry, honey, couldn’t resist).

So, I did what any red-blooded Montanan would do:  I took her to Cabelas.

Heaven in logs and fieldstone.

And yes, I get to call myself a Montanan.  Once you’re standing in 4 inches of snow at 0300 in -20 F with a -40 F wind chill, you are officially a Northerner.  When you’re doing it because you hit a deer, you’re officially a Montanan.

Rats.  With.  Antlers.

This is where I say I am indebted to Mr. White Pickup for evading me when I realized a wee bit too late that I was coming up on a red light.  Hey, you try stopping short in 4 inches of snow.  Patty’s ABS is good, but not that good.

After approximately 8 slow laps of the store, we emerged with only $116 in miscellaneous goods.  Hey, Northern emergency supplies are expensive.

I could have spent more.

After an uneventful return to the hospital, we found the Dot still asleep.  That is roughly when we realized that, being a classic father, I had entertained my girl for an hour and a half while forgetting to…well…you know…feed her.  So after a quick overpriced meal of Swedish meatballs and grapes we were joined by the Beloved and Sleeping Beauty, the latter of which proved that a toddler NPO for 12 hours is a bottomless pit.

So now we wait.  The projected turnaround time for a routine scheduled pediatric MRI is 48 hours.  Hopefully Wednesday, we will discover that my attempts to stack the deck worked.