DH's family is drama with a capital D. Sometimes I wonder if my last name should, in fact, be "Drama." It's honestly exhausting and I often don't know how to cope. Thankfully, I've found DWIL. This is gonna be long but I am venting (I've LC'ed her, today was a fluke) and hoping to get stories from you all, too.
This could be a *possible mild trigger* in reference to child illness.
Today, I was out with MIL somewhere. Her phone rings and it automatically goes on Bluetooth over the loud speaker. It was LC CIL. She said, "Hello?" in a broken voice and then all we could hear was her sobbing. MIL kept saying, "Hello? What is going on?!" At that point, our hearts were in the floor because we didn't know what to think and CIL was on the line not speaking. Then, CIL handed the phone to eight year old DNe1 who was also sobbing and incoherent. Unfortunately, she has inherited the drama gene watching her mom and everyone else in action. DNe1 (DH and I consider her a niece, MIL considers her a grandchild... long, crazy backstory for another day) said, "Hello?" Then some stuff we couldn't understand.
MIL was getting kind of annoyed because, in an emergency situation, why would an adult put a hysterical child onto the phone? CIL was coaching DNe1 on what to say. Finally, we made out DNe1 saying, "I've got some bad news... It's about DNe2." DNe2 is CIL's youngest daughter, who is fourteen months. I almost threw up. The way they were both sobbing to the point of speechlessness made the think the absolute worst. Especially when DNe1 said, "I've got some bad news."
MIL yelled, "What do you mean you've got bad news about DNe2!" DNe1 quipped, "We;re rushing her to the hospital right now." Then, nothing but whimpers again. MIL yelled once more, "Well what are you rushing her to the hospital for?!" DNe1 responds through tears, "I've gotta call you back later, bye." MIL told her not to hang up and asked again what they were going to the hospital for. Finally after about five minutes on the phone with them, DNe1 says, "DNe2 has a fever of 103 and her eyes are huge. Her feet are turning purple and are freezing cold. She's out of it and not acting like herself at all." Notice how answers to questions were stalled and that little bit about hanging up. So, MIL demanded to know which hospital. CIL and her DDs were en route to the major children's hospital in the big city 45-mins away. So, of course, we headed there right then. Had I not been in MIL's car, I wouldn't have gone until/unless a prognosis had been made. The whole way, we were thinking we would be met with DNe2 fighting for her life at the hospital and our hearts were breaking, Googling these crazy symptoms to see if we could find anything out. Obviously, when anyone around here says they are taking their child to the well-known children's hospital, it's bad.
When we finally got there, we were very surprised. DNe2 was sitting on CIL's lap clapping, smiling, giggling, etc. Her usual self. Yes, she was very obviously fevered and tired around the eyes from fighting it but that was it. No huge eyes, no incoherent behavior, feet were cooler than her face but that's normal with a fever. They were not purple nor freezing cold. To us, it was immediately clear there was some sort of run-of-the-mill virus or infection at play. After having two children, seems like you'd be used to that. CIL readily admitted to us that DNe1 had dramatized the symptoms on the phone. It almost appeared she felt stupid for having called us there. She kept apologizing and telling us we could leave. CIL's DH rushed to the hospital from far away, as well. As soon as he walked in he said, "Wtf? She's fine! It looks like she could have an ear infection or something, but that's not children's hospital worthy!" They went back eventually and MIL and I left.
We got a text two hours later. What was the problem? The baby has an ear infection. She was given antibiotics and her fever was successfully reduced with a dose of children's Motrin (obivously THANK GOD that was it! But, really?!).
Whew! That feels better! So, please share with my insomniac self. Tell me some of your best of IL/FOO melodrama (aka: blown out of proportion) stories.