Bad mom diary

We moms are hard on ourselves. No matter what we do, someone is doing it better. And we make mistakes, yes we do.

A week before resident camp, my purple-shirted daughter enjoyed a troop camping trip with older scouts.

I am right now waiting until I can go pick my daughter up from Girl Scout summer camp. She was gone for four nights (what’s considered a short session) and the bus that’s carrying her home likely just left the mountain camp.

I missed her and of course will be happy to have her return home, but my bad mom moment? She headed up to the mountains with a MRSA staph infection. Bad mom!

She had a bump on her left for a couple of days that looked like a big bite and we thought little of it. By Sunday, she was limping and the bump was much larger, protruding far from her leg and it was hard and red. I’m not a doctor, but I play one at home and that told me we had trouble. Off to the urgent care we went.

The doctor suspected that she had been bit by a bug, but after that a boil set in, which had become infected. Great. He took a culture to be tested for staph (he was afraid it was a MRSA infection) and told us she could go to camp as long as the was given her antibiotic and they kept her leg wrapped. She left urgent care with layers of gauze on her leg and an Ace bandage wrapped completely around it. Still a slight limp.

Because the doctor said she could go and she felt fine, we made the quick decision to let her get on the bus early Monday morning. I wrote up instructions for the staff nurse and sent up extra gauze and a new Ace bandage. I was feeling OK about our decision.

The first night, the first round of pictures were posted. My sweet daughter, whose beautiful face literally lights up in the presence of a camera, was not smiling in any of the pictures. Not one. Mom is getting nervous.

The next day, I got a call that she had, indeed, tested positive for MRSA staph. I talked to her regular doctor who didn’t seem concerned she was at camp, even though I was. I called camp, a bit of a no-no but OK under these circumstances, and was told she was taking her medication, her bandage was clean and dry and she was having a great time.

Mom is feeling a bit better.

Since then, however, I’ve talked to some people and when I tell them what is wrong with her, I get the same response — “she went to camp?” Which makes mom nervous again.

So, long story short? I am glad it’s nearly time to pick her up. I will run her dirty and likely stinky body right to the doctor’s office so they can see what’s going on and hopefully we’ll get a clean bill of health.

I hope there will be no crisis to avert.