After having a cough and missing a week of school, it was picture day last Thursday and Ariana swore she was feeling better… so I let her go to school. Little did I know she still had a cough and was sent immediately home and told she couldn’t return until she had a negative COVID test or waited 10 days.
Since she still had her cough through the weekend and on Monday morning, we waited to get her tested and just let her relax at home for over a week of school. Better safe than sorry, though other than the cough she was just fine and felt great. Arthas was sick with the cough too, and over the weekend he spent an entire day throwing up, luckily he was better 24 hours later, and luckily no one else felt sick to their stomach.
On Monday Ariana had her very first Girl Scout meeting in the afternoon, she is now officially a Daisy and a member of the local troop! There are 8 or 9 girls in her troop and they meet at the local library. I stayed for most of the meeting and it was very cute. They only meet once a month and then will have an additional field trip or activity once a month too – there may be some regional events as well.
Ariana was very excited and we are going to order her a bunch of cute gear in addition to her Daisy uniform. When I was in Daisies we met once a week after school plus activity days, so it’s a little sad that she doesn’t get to do as much as we used to, but also the troop leaders are first timers and we are already super busy with Arin’s cross country and now JROTC, so I guess it’s good she doesn’t need rides all the time too.
After her troop meeting, I drove Nana to the local COVID testing site after calling them and them saying they were open for walk-ins. Well, we got there and they told me with a straight face that their test ‘quota’ for the day had been met and I’d have to come back in the morning. Not that they were out of tests, or they were unable to see her, just that their ‘quota’ was finished for the day. I was … not pleased. Just an incredibly irresponsible and stupid system, if you have the tests and people need the tests to … GO TO SCHOOL, then administer them!
So, I called another place all the way in Riverhead, almost a half hour away, and they said yes they had tests and yes they were still giving them. So off we drove at nearly dinner time, luckily Arin opted to walk home instead of meet us at the library or he would have had to come with us. So once we got there we ended up having to wait of course, as it was a busy urgent care facility. Luckily there was a nice lady who gave Ariana crayons and a coloring book as well as a goodie bag (and then the same kit to take home for her brother, how sweet!).
So we had to wait in the waiting room, then finally went back into a clinic room and had to wait there of course, then the nurse administered the rapid COVID test which we had to wait 20 minutes for, then we saw the Nurse Practitioner who wanted to give Ariana a full exam because she didn’t like the sound of her cough. She wanted to check her for strep and they have a rapid test for that now too, so we had to wait there another 20 minutes for that!
This entire time Alex is texting me asking what’s taking so long because he wanted me to get everyone Burger King for dinner, as there is no fast food where we live and only when we go into Riverhead can we get some, and him and Arin are obsessed with the Spicy Ch’king sandwiches which are, admittedly, quite good. So he was expecting we’d be home any minute with the food as it’s now way past the kids bed time and they are all hungry.
Of course, she did not have strep, and the NP said she was absolutely fine to return to school, even though she still had her cough. So she agreed to write a doctor’s note in addition to the negative test result, which of course we had to sit and wait for her to write. Then, because they also do a 5-day strep test, we had to sign up for myChart out in the lobby, and the receptionist had a devil of a time signing us up for that, which took probably another 20 minutes. So we were there at least 3 hours when we expected maybe 30 minutes, and everyone was hungry and bedtime was a distant memory.
In the end, we grabbed the Burger King meals, drove 30 minutes home, ate the food and got everyone into bed very late… but at least I got everything done and Ariana was able to go to school the next morning finally! She was very happy, so it was all worth it in the end.
