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            Beep Boop. Beep Boop. Beep Boop.  It’s friggin 3 AM and my pump is sounding the alarm.  When Nikki the nurse had switched out my antibiotic bag on Wednesday, I didn’t make it to the main road before this thing started beeping.  She had forgotten to hit the “start” button.  Now, at friggin 3 AM Thursday morning, I’ve gotta figure out why this baby is crying.

            According to the digital screen, there is an “upstream occlusion.”  Why the heck do they have to use words like “occlusion?”  It’s like the use of “vexatiously” in the oath for election workers.  Most people don’t know how to pronounce these words, let alone their definitions.  I’m guessing the poll worker oath was written by a lawyer…so the pump digital messaging must have been written by a doctor?  Or maybe we can blame a lawyer on that one too.

            An “occlusion” is essentially an obstruction somewhere between the pump, the antibiotic bag, the 10 feet of tubing, and where it’s plugged into my chest.  It means something along the line is blocking the tube from dispensing the antibiotic.  I feel along the tube, trying to figure out where the kink might be.  Aha!  The tube is literally folded up under the one boob that I have.  I pull it out from under there, and the machine starts softly, happily clicking again.  No more urgent cry-beeping.

            Thursday afternoon, as I’m driving to my infusion appointment, this baby starts crying again.  And again, there’s an “upstream occlusion.”  I move the bag around a bit in the passenger seat, but nothing is making this baby happy.  I hit some buttons and it stops crying for the moment.  Hearing this thing beep will make you as frantic as hearing a baby cry.  And trying to quiet it down is akin to texting while driving.

            When I get to the waiting room, my baby is quiet, having worked its gas out on its own.  I walk over to the restroom and there’s a man sitting in one of the waiting room chairs with an identical bag-with-pump-baby hanging from around his neck.  I’ve noticed that’s the way the men like to wear them.  I actually haven’t seen a woman with one other than me, so I can’t confidently say it’s a man thing, but I’m assuming they wear it around their necks so it doesn’t seem like they’re toting around a purse.  Might hurt their masculinity.

            Anyway, this guy points the bag out and says, “Don’t ya love it?”

            “Hey!  We shop at the same store!” I say.  I’ve been dying to use that line.  All the guys, though, that I’ve seen with this thing hanging around their necks either don’t make eye contact with me or they’re so old that I worry they won’t get the joke.  This guy gets it.  

            “It’s a French Man Bag,” he responds.  He’s definitely got a hold of his masculinity.

            When I get back to the infusion center, Sare is my nurse. 

            “Is it Sare? Or Sarah?” I ask.

            “Just Sare.  But everyone calls me Sarah. Including my son.  I mean, he calls me ‘Mom,’ but when he’s introducing me to someone, he calls me Sarah.”

            “Is it short for something? Or just Sare?”

            “Just Sare.  I like to say my mom couldn’t afford the whole name.”

            Nikki comes over to say hi.

           “This baby started crying at 3 AM,” I tell her.  Like it’s her fault.

            “Was there a kink in the tubing?” she asks.  

            “Yep–the tube was folded up under the one boob that I DO have!”

            Nikki busts out laughing.  “I should’ve expected you to say something like that!”

            Nikki and I have been talking about the Australian break-dancer from the Olympics and how she definitely broke dancing.  It’s nice to talk to a real person from the community about the Twitter gossip.  It makes me feel like we have an inside joke.

            Sare gets my bag of antibiotics changed out.  This should be my last dose, so she doesn’t change anything else out.  Just gives me the refill.

            My schedule for these infusion appointments has been to leave the infusion center and go directly to my kiddos’ school for dismissal.  The school is literally around the corner from the infusion center, so it’s perfect.  Except today.  As I’m going around that corner, this baby starts fussing again.  

            I pull into the school parking lot.  It’s so hard to think straight when your antibiotic bag is screaming at you.  Immediately I start playing the scenario out in my head: I’m going to have to go back to the infusion center.  I’m going to lose my parking space at the school.  I’m going to have to fight all that pick-up traffic coming back, so I may as well go to Starbucks to kill time after they fix my screaming baby.  Or I can push some buttons and figure out what the heck is wrong with this screaming baby on my own.

            The message this time says that the reservoir is empty.  Well, I know that’s not true.  I saw Sare put the new bag in.  I can feel it.  I unzip the bag and physically see it.  I realize that I’m able to reset the reservoir by pushing a button.  I do that.  The baby is happy and begins its soothing whirring as it pumps antibiotics into my chest.  I swear I’m having breastfeeding flashbacks.

            At 3 AM Friday morning, I’m woken up to the Beep Boop again.  But this time the baby is angry.  I try to burp the baby.  It didn’t work.  I pat the baby on its butt.  Still Beep Booping.  I pull the baby into bed with me to snuggle.  Still crying.  The screen is showing red and flashing “upstream occlusion.”  I make sure there’s no kinked tubing under my boob.  Nothing will make this baby stop crying.  I want to shake this baby.  My pump is literally going to have shaken baby syndrome.  The only option the pump gives me is “Stop Pump.”  So that’s what I do.  

            At 5:40 AM, when I’m up out of bed and getting my coffee maker together, the pump makes a happy noise.  “Occlusion cleared. Start pump?” it says on the screen.  I push “Yes.”  It had ONE minute left.  ONE.  This thing runs for 30 minutes at a time, and you’re telling me it got to 29 and then just couldn’t do it anymore?  Because I stopped the pump and then started it again at 5:40 AM, my pumping time was reset.  So instead of the 2:45 PM/2:45 AM schedule it was on, it will now be a 5:40 AM/5:40 PM schedule.  All because of one minute.  I’m so irritated with this baby.

            Friday morning I have another telemed appointment with my Infectious Disease doctor.  I really feel like these telemed appointments with the ID doctor are pointless.  How much can he really see through my cell phone camera lens?  I understand telemed appointments when you’re just needing to talk to someone.  But how can you inspect a skin infection via telehealth?  The ID doctor tells me my incision looks good and asks how I’m feeling.  I feel fine.  I’ve never felt sick.  But that doesn’t mean anything, obviously.  There’s a whole world of disease going on in and around my body, so clearly how I feel makes no difference.

            The ID doctor tells me the antibiotics seem to be working.  I tell him I still have a drain from my surgery.  He asks when that comes out.  “Tuesday,” I say.  He then proceeds to tell me that we’ll need to keep the antibiotics in place, since there’s still a foreign body inserted.

            “You don’t mind another 5 days, right?”  As long as this baby behaves, what’s another 5 days?  

            Famous last words.