Snow Days and More

Chapter 2
Part Two

I woke up two hours later to Mom sitting next to me on my bed. She had covered me up, apparently, at sat with me while I ’napped’. When she saw I was awake, she smiled at me.

"Sleep good, Nick?"

"Leave me alone, Mom. Please, just leave me alone."

"Listen, I came down on you kind of hard, doober," she said, using my old nickname. "I want to apologize. It’s just that...well, like I told your Dad. Look at it from my point. I know you hate wetting your pants, and your bed. But I hate washing it all up after you do. It’s kind of gross, Nick."

"Yea, I guess, Mom. But still, I don’t need diapers. I’m not a baby. Maybe GoodNites for bed, but not diapers."

"Look, get up and get dressed, doober. The roads are pretty much cleared, and Dr. Wubble called to say she can still see you today. Come down, eat some lunch, and we’ll head out. Okay?"

"I guess so," I said, and after Mom left I pulled on clean underwear (remember, I had fallen asleep in my towel), jeans and an Eagles sweatshirt. I tied my sneakers on, and headed to the kitchen for a quick sandwich, then Mom and I headed down the garage.

I was silent the whole trip to the doctor’s, for two reasons. One, Mom needed to concentrate on piloting the Suburban on the roads, which were clear but not 100%. They were still kind of icy, and Mom didn’t want to wreck. The other reason was I was afraid of what the Doctor would say to me, and afraid of the needle I knew she’d have her nurse stick in me, like she did every time I saw her. I just sat on the backseat, listening to my iPod, watching out the window as the snow covered hills rolled by. The main roads were much better, and before I knew it, we were at Dr. Wubble’s office.

In the exam room, the nurse had me strip to my boxers, and had me stand on the scale to weigh me (54 pounds) and measure me (48"). I then had to do the usual eye chart test, and aced it as always. Back in the exam room, I sat on the paper-covered table/bed and popped my earbuds back in and tried to relax.

Dr. Wubble came in a few minutes later, and after a few ’how’s school?’ and ’did you play in the snow today’ kind of questions, she got down to it.

"So, Nick, why are you here today?"

"Mom? What do I tell her?" I didn’t want to tell her, that was for sure. I mean, I knew Dr. Wubble knew that I wet the bed. I just didn’t feel comfortable talking to her about it.

"The truth, doober. Want me to tell her?" I nodded, already blushing. "Well, Doctor, as you know, Nick’s bee wetting his bed for a while now, right after Mike left. And now, this week, he’s had several daytime accidents."

"MOM!" I interjected. "We talked about those! I only wet once that I didn’t have a reason for."

"Nick, cool it," Mom said. "Anyway, Doctor, what he said is right. Several of the accidents have been for reasons beyond his control. Last night, however, he wet his pants while watching TV. I don’t know what to do, Dr. Wubble. I’m at wits end."

"Have you tried the suggestions I made when he first started bedwetting?"

"Yes. I tried setting his alarm for twice a night, to wake him up and go. And it sort of worked. Half the time, he went, the other half he didn’t. And sometimes, he’d go at one of the two times he woke up, and still wake up wet. I tried not giving him soda. I tried not letting him have a drink before bed. Nothing’s worked, Doctor."

"I see. Well, Nick, I’d like to run a few tests, to make sure there isn’t an infection or other medical reason for your accidents."

"You’re gonna take blood, huh?" I asked, miserably.

"Yes, I have to. I’m also going to do a test called a sonogram. Do you know what that is?"

"Isn’t that what pregnant ladies get to find out what kind of baby they’re having?"

"Well, yes, that is the most common use of a sonogram. What a sonogram is, though, Nick, is a device that sends out a very high pitched sound, higher than humans can hear, and using the reflections of that sound, I can see an image of your insides. It’s quite painless, and very safe."

"Okay, I guess," I said. Dr. Wubble left the office, and sent her nurse in, the same one who checked my height and weight. She knew I hated having blood drawn, and was very gentle in doing it. Mom patted my back as she stuck me, and stroked my hair as the three vials of blood were taken from me. The nurse put a bandage on the hole and told me I’d been very brave once again, and left, taking the blood samples with her. I wiped the small tear that had formed in my eye away, not wanting Mom to think I was a wuss for crying.

Dr. Wubble came back a few minutes after, wheeling a small machine with her. It had a keyboard hanging off one side, and what looked like a monitor on top. On the side, next to the keyboard, was a strange device that looked kind of like a flat-headed microphone, and a spirally cord coming out of the bottom. Next to that was a bottle of what looked like green Jell-O. Dr. Wubble plugged the machine in, and the screen came to life. The logo for the pediatrics group Dr. Wubble was a member of bounced on the screen, like a screensaver.

"Okay champ, I need you to lay back and relax. I’m going to put some gel on you, to help the transducer work better..."

"The what?" I interrupted.

"The transducer. That’s this here," she said, showing me the flat-topped microphone thing. "I will press this into your skin, and it sends out sound, into your body. The echoes it picks up make a picture, which will be displayed on this screen. I can use it to determine if there is a tumor or some other kind of problem that blood work won’t pick up. Now, the gel is warm, but it may feel a little chilly at first. I need you to lay as still as you can, okay?"

I nodded, and asked if I could listen to my music while she did her test. I was allowed, and popped my earbuds in, listening to the music Dad had hooked me on, bands like Metallica and Slayer. Old 80s and 90s metal rock.

The gel was rubbed onto me, and I giggled despite myself, as it felt so gooey and tickly on my bare skin. I watched as "Of Wolf and Man" by Metallica blared in my ear, watched as the doctor used the transducer thing on my belly. It wasn’t painful, but sort of unpleasant, the amount of pressure she used. She left the thing there for a minute or two, then hit some keys on her machine, and pressed down in a different area.

I had listened to about ten songs...about half an hour...when the doctor told me she was done. She went over the results with me, looking at weird looking black and white images on the monitor. She pointed out where my bladder was in the image, and my kidneys as well. I couldn’t tell, even after she showed me. If you’ve ever seen an ultrasound photo, you know what I mean. It just looked like blurs to me.

"Bottom line, Nick, and this is good news, is that I can see no infections of your bladder or your kidneys. No tears or holes of any kind. The only thing I can see is that your bladder is smaller than the average eleven-year-olds would be, but that’s due to your stature."

"So what now, Doctor," Mom asked.

"Well, the lab tech should be just about done with his tests. Let me go talk to him, and I’ll be back. Nick, there are wipes by the sink, you can go ahead and clean the gel off of yourself and get dressed, champ. I’ll be back in a jiff."

I was cleaned up and dressed in a few minutes, and was again listening to my iPod when Dr. Wubble came back.

"Well, Nick, the lab tech says your blood work is fine. No signs of ADH-deficiency, no signs of anything at all wrong. Basically, Nick, what’s going on is the same thing that’s been going on for a long time. When a child goes through a stressful period in their life, they can regress. It’s called secondary enuresis. They start wetting the bed, and sometimes even wetting during the day. My advice to you, and to you Ms. Dunlap, is to see a counselor, a good child therapist. Let the therapist help Nick deal with the stresses of a broken marriage. And in the meantime, Nick, I know you’ll hate me for this. But I think it might be a good idea for you to wear protection to bed. Have you heard of GoodNites?"

"Yea. Diapers," I said sorrowfully. "I don’t wanna wear diapers."

"Well, actually, champ, GoodNites aren’t diapers. They’re just like regular underwear, but help keep your bed dry. Trust me, I have tons of patients, young boys and girls both, that have the same issue you do, and at first, none of them wanted to wear them. But in the end, Nick, all of them have thanked me for the advice. They feel more confident about themselves, don’t feel like such a baby for waking up to a wet bed. And in time, they bedwetting stops, Nick, and you won’t have to wear them again."

"What about during the day?" I asked. "I mean, Mom thinks I wet my pants like I do my bed now. Only, last night was the only time I did. The other times were because I couldn’t get to a bathroom."

"Well, then I don’t see a need for them during the day. Unless you would feel better wearing one."

"I don’t think so."

And that was that. The doctor told Mom she wanted to see me in one month, for follow-up blood work and another sonogram, and wished me the best of luck. We left the office, and I just shuffled along, not even wanting to listen to music. I just wanted to run away. I didn’t want to wear diapers...or GoodNites either for that matter. It was bad enough I was the same size as the first graders at my school. Mom and I got into a little argument in the car on the way home, with her ending it by saying without question I’d be in GoodNites come bedtime.

Back home, I went to my room and watched TV, ignoring Mom all afternoon. She called me down for dinner, but I wasn’t hungry. I called down to her that I wanted to be alone. I was dreading bedtime, knowing Mom was going to make me wear those GoodNites things. I had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

To Be Continued...