Okay, so I am back! Sorry for the little blip of nothingness (well sort of, I did post small things) I was just super overwhelmed for the past few weeks! I guess, it happens to all of us, and I thank all of the mommies who reassured me of this. You gals are the best.
So where should I start?
Oh yes. The emergency room.
Never did I want to bring my baby to an ER, or have a reason to, but alas the time came. One day, L had a fever. We chalked it up to teething (ya know, since he is ALWAYS TEETHING!!) and when it got to 100.8 and he was miserable, I called the doctor to make sure it was okay to give him tylenol anyway since there is that rule about waiting until it gets to 101. He was so worn out from having the fever, and just wanted to feel better. The doc gave me the go ahead, the baby fell asleep, and all was well for a night.
The next day, he was acting strange. The fever never came back, but he was sleeping all day and really lathargic. This wouldn’t have worried me, but his color was off. He was paler than usual, and got worn out doing his usual baby things. We waited a day. By 6pm the next night he hadn’t improved so we called the doctor. He tells us to take him to an after hours clinic, and to do it right away. I didn’t want some non pediatrician doctor handling my child, so we took him the pediatric ER – the best one in the tri-county area.
We got there, and waited. L was okay for an hour of waiting, but when he is somewhere other than home for too long (and when he is usually asleep by 7pm) he gets restless. Then restlessness turns into wimpering. Then wimpering turns into screaming bloody murder. Yes, folks, we waited in the that waiting room for 2.5 hours until we got a room, and by that time L was beside himself.
In the room, we took turns trying to calm him, and nothing worked. An hour later, the doctor showed up. The baby is screaming, and confusion sets in. She asks us questions, she cannot hear our answers. Suddenly, she leaves and two nurses are trying to put an IV into a (then) 5 month old baby and horribly failing. The IV doesn’t work, falls out and suddenly my baby’s blood is everywhere. They decide to put a bandage on it, and tell us to go to x-ray and after they will do a spinal tap.
This, folks, is when I lost it. My baby is only lathargic. Why does he need xrays and spinal taps?? Why didn’t the doctor tell us??? WHY??? Then I thought – I bet she is treating him for crying. They think we brought him in here because of the crying. Oh my god they are going to do horrible things to him because he is tired and wants to go home!
I walk back into the room, tell them I am not budging until I talk to the doctor. I tell my husband to wait out in the hall with the baby (who is still screaming bloody murder). 5 minutes later the doctor walks in.
“So, I called you in here to make sure you aren’t treating him for crying.”
“…”
“Why did you bring him in again?”
Yeah. So after explaining, again, that he was acting a little off and tired and that he gets this way when he is tired and somewhere other than home – she finally listens. She still wants to do an xray, so I agree to that, and tell her to hold off on the spinal tap until the bloodwork gets back (apparently they took blood while they were trying to put in an IV and I was so upset about having to hold my baby down I didn’t notice) and if everything isn’t okay will go from there.
A nurse comes in, gives L some tylenol. L falls asleep on the bed. All is quiet again, and he is sleeping beautifully with My husband and I on either side of the bed cuddling him. By this point, its midnight, and we are loopy. We start making jokes with each other, and praying everything is okay and that we just overreacted about him being tired.
An hour later, the doctor comes in and tells us everything looks beautiful – except his lungs. He has the beginnings of bronchiolitis and we should follow up with his pediatrician in a couple days. We all laugh about the situation, and she tells us she has a child who does the same thing about being other places at bedtime. We take the baby home.
The next day we start freaking out about being in an ER where there were a ton of swineflu looking kids (and I am a major germophobe). Luckily, it’s been over two weeks so I think we might have dodged that bullet – praise the lord!
We call the doc and follow up with him. Everything sounds fine. His lungs were cloudy because of all the spit he had inhaled while he was screaming his head off. *sigh* No bronchiolitis. L is back to acting like himself, and all is well.
So that was L’s first visit to the ER. Thank god it was nothing! I will gladly pay a huge bill for nothing!
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