Starlight Starbright

Four years ago my daughter woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me she had thrown up.  Half awake and thoroughly grossed out, I told her to clean herself up and come back to me afterwards.  She never did.  I woke up at 4:30 to the deafening sounds of Harry Potter.  As I trudged out to the living room in my groggy early morning state, I found her sitting with a box of cereal beside her and the bowl propped on her lap, her eyes riveted on the screen.  Needless to say, with no fever and no signs of illness, I sent her on to get ready for school.  She faked a cough, a little hack here or there and then protested.  The protest lasted the entire ride to school, when I waved her on and headed to work.  At work, I told my coworkers that I hadn’t yet figured out what she was trying to get out of but I wasn’t going to fall for it.  And as if by queue, my phone began ringing.  It was the school, and she was sick.  I arrived at the school and spoke with the lady at the desk.  My daughter was not sick, she was faking it and why couldn’t a school official who dealt with kids notice a fake cough when she heard it.  Instead of being met with cooperation, I was told that she could not return to school until I had a doctor’s note.  As we rode home, my daughter finally admitted to me that she had been faking it and lying to me.  And it really pissed me off because now I would have to miss a day of work and pay for a doctor’s visit because of her scheming!  At the doctor’s office I told them how she had lied, how she was not even very good at faking it and I would need a note to let her return to school.  The doctor instead told me that they needed to admit her to the hospital immediately.  She had asthma.

I am a fortunate parent in that since her diagnosis her asthma has been relatively under control.  She has a bevy of medicines she has to take and she has had a few hospitalization, but she is relatively healthy.  Not all parents are so lucky.