It was probably the scariest two hours of my life.

A couple of weeks ago, I was relaxing in the morning with my two kids. My wife, as she is wont to do, was out running a gajillion miles as she trains for a marathon. My plan was to take the little ones to breakfast and then maybe for some bike riding. I told them to run upstairs and change so we could start our day.

A minute or so later, I hear my five-year-old son start screaming and crying in pain. It’s his stomach, he says. That’s fine, no big deal. When you’ve been a parent for several years, you learn that stomach pains aren’t often something to worry about. I tell him it’s probably just something called gas, a concept that is actually pretty difficult to explain to a little child. We try walking it off, and he collapses in pain.

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After about 15 minutes, I break out the old, “Aw, buddy, if it really hurts that much, we’re probably going to have to get you to the doctor and won’t be able to ride our bikes today.” Classic parent move, right? Suddenly every boo-boo miraculously heals and your day can go on like nothing ever happened. Instead, he responds with, “Please daddy, get me to the doctor now.”

Ok, well, that was slightly disconcerting. The little man may be a lot of things but he’s not someone who complains about ouchies or asks to go to the doctor. But I’m still betting on gas. I get both kids in the car, hoping that he’ll start feeling better and maybe we can go to breakfast after all. After a lengthy discussion about why it won’t hurt him to get in the car even though it too has gas, I strap him in his car seat and call the pediatrician. Oddly enough, being in the car seat makes him feel better, though he’s not perfect.

Once I have the nurse from the pediatrician’s office on the phone, I explain the situation. It’s probably just gas, seems like he’s feeling better, etc. And in my experience, most calls to the pediatrician end with a “get outta here, he’s fine.” Instead, the nurse tells me that the practice just opened up an urgent care facility, and I should bring him in. Sigh.

We make our way there. My daughter has been asking about breakfast for like an hour and is starting to get a little “hangry,” and the magic of the car seat is no longer working. When we get to urgent care, we’re brought into a room, where my poor little guy is writhing in pain. After the usual dose of questions, the nurse puts her hands on his lower abdomen, slowly takes them away, takes off her gloves, and throws down the following:

“So, I felt some resistance. I want you to go over to the emergency room where they have better equipment. We’ll call ahead so you can go right in. We’re going to put some stuff on the veins in his arms and hands to numb them so there won’t be any delay in getting the IV in. If he gets worse on the way, go ahead and pull over and call 911.”

Well, that certainly escalated quickly. So here’s the situation: my son is in serious pain and crying hysterically. My daughter need carbs soon or she’s going to eat her own arm, and she’s also freaking out because she’s old enough to know that this isn’t good. My wife is in the middle of a training run without her phone. And a nurse just seemed to imply that my son may need some kind of emergency surgery.

It was time to channel every bit of parenting skill I had. I call my wife and leave an innocuous voicemail (“Hey, give me a buzz when you’re done with your training run. No big deal. Hope you crushed it.”). I tell my daughter that I know for a fact there’s a Dunkin’ in the hospital we’re going to and it has the best bagels in the world. And I stare into my son’s eyes and calmly say, “Look at me. I promise you. You’re going to be fine. Daddy has you.” I scoop him up and out we go.

Just so I don’t pat myself on the back too much here, I could’ve said something like, “Excuse me, but what exactly do you think is wrong with my son” or “whoa, this sounds serious, are you sure this is necessary” or “Resistance? If you put your cold hands on my stomach, you’d probably feel resistance, too.” But, in that moment, none of that occurred to me. All I was thinking about was trying to find the fastest way to the emergency room and whether there is a vending machine on the way so my daughter stops yelling at me.

They’re waiting for us at the ER. With the way my son is wailing, everyone runs out of the way, and they usher us right back into an exam room. We’re waiting for the doctor to see us, my wife finally finishes her training run and I break the news to her gently, and I explain the situation to the nurse who brings in some candy for my daughter. Finally, my son utters what are his first words that haven’t been totally muffled by crying: “Dad, I need to go pee.”

Ok, well, we’ve got words that I can actually understand, so I’m taking it as a good sign. I carry him to the bathroom and he says he can go in by himself. As I’m waiting outside the door, a nurse runs up to me with a small cup. So I sheepishly knock on the door to try to explain to him the concept of a urine sample.

I open the door slowly. He’s sitting on the toilet and has a huge smile on his face. “Boy, I feel a LOT better, dad.”

Don’t get me wrong – I was extremely relieved. But also:

So, I send him back to the room, sheepishly explain to the nurses and doctors the situation and beg them to believe I’m not a crazy parent, call my wife to give her the good (albeit embarrassing) news, and check out. We hit up some Dunkin’ on the way out, grab the bikes, and have an utterly normal rest of our weekend.

So what’s the moral of the story? First, make sure your kids eat a lot of fiber. But second, I could have reacted a lot of ways in that situation. I could have left my wife a voicemail that betrayed just how petrified I was, or texted her incessantly until she responded. I could have yelled at my daughter to stop talking about how much she wants a chocolate chip muffin rather than begging the nurse to get her some candy to tide her over. And most importantly, I could have let the little guy know that he may be in trouble by panicking, which would only have worsened the situation. But I didn’t. Other than totally failing to ask the nurse, “Um, out of curiosity, what’s wrong with my son,” I kept cool.

We just finished Week 1, guys. Your team may have had the worst week in the history of fantasy football. You might have lost Delanie Walker for the season, be concerned about Leonard Fournette, or realized that even with the discount you got on Doug Baldwin, that draft pick is not going to work out.

Just breathe. We’ve got a long way to go. Don’t dump your big names for pennies on the dollar because of one bad game. Don’t try to reinvent your team on the fly. Ask the nurse for some candy and trust that everything is going to work out.

With that said, it’s never too early to think about making some minor tweaks to your team. And to that end, we are BACK and better than ever with our weekly trade chart.

You know the deal by now — take the values assigned to each player on both sides of a proposed trade, add them together, and see which comes out on top. Easy-peasy. But note ONE change from last year. Rather than being based off standard leagues, these are now geared toward 0.5 PPR leagues. And, of course, I’ll offer my usual caveat. Use these as rough guidelines — they’re not the Bible.

Ready? Let’s make some deals.

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Tight Ends

 
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Dan Harris is a featured writer for FantasyPros. For more from Dan, check out his archive or follow him on Twitter @danharris80.