Yesterday my son suddenly started complaining of stomach pain. Not just complaining, but lying in a chair and moaning, clutching his abdomen. This is not normal behavior. He has never had stomach pain of any kind.

So? We go to the doctor, to the clinic that our HMO or PPO or WhateverO has so that we can see medical professionals on the weekend. I’m thinking it probably isn’t serious, but we might as well check now instead of trying to get him in on Monday morning.

So the Triage Nurse calls us in, they weigh him, she asks him where it hurts and he shows her. She takes his temperature, and it’s 100.1. I’m thinking to myself “that’s not too bad…” and I carried him in and he didn’t feel warm to me.

So she goes nonchalantly “Abdominal pain with a fever in a young child is almost automatically a visit to the ER.”

Huh? Where did that come from? Luckily we were allowed to see a doctor, who said “Just take it easy and if the fever goes up to 100.5 keep him home from school.” He couldn’t detect any inflammation in the abdominal area (apparently they are worried about appendicitis).

However, this was not before my son had worked himself into full panic mode. By the time the doctor even came into our little room he was saying things like “If they try and cut me open with a knife you’ll stop them, right?” and “I don’t want to die!”