Tell Me It’s Just A Bad Case Of Lovin’ You.
Tuesday night found me gnashing my teeth, feeling overwhelmingly sorry for myself while sitting on the couch crying, “Oh noes!” Nothing was technically WRONG, but for some reason the first Early Intervention interview (for those who have been there: it’s the paperwork one) threw me through a loop.
That and the idiotic thing I did where I went back and gathered up all of the insurance/doctor notes/crap I’ve been sent since Amelia was born and threw it into a folder. Glancing down at it while I was doing it was as advisable as looking at an MRI of your child’s grey matter.
So there I was, prostrate with self-pity and overall stupidity, crying my ever-loving head off.
I went to bed a couple of hours later with my head pounding (I’ve been having a string of headaches. Which led, in part, to my Pity Party) only to be woken up at odd intervals by my son, who was flipping around in his crib in the next room.
I woke up The Daver to have him go in there and move Alex’s crib away from the wall and to check on the ickle dude. Why I sent Dave in there and not me, I don’t know.
He’d gotten a bug bite overnight on Sunday and woke up Monday with a small lump on his face. By Tuesday afternoon, it had begun to swell slightly. I’d pumped him full of Benedryl, Ibuprofen and Tylenol to pull down some of the swelling, and he’d gone into a deep sleep.
(aside: Thank you Benedryl for awesomely putting my kid to sleep)
We’re not alarmist sort of parents, we don’t take our kids to the ER for fevers of unknown origin unless they’re incredibly high (the fevers, not my kid. Because if my kid is high, he should be sharing), and I rarely call the doctor to schedule anything besides the well-child visits.
Dave shuffled in to Alex’s room where he found our son flopping about in his bed. After his record 3 hour nap that afternoon, it wasn’t terribly shocking that he was up at 1 AM. In a stroke of divine luck (not Divine Brown), Dave picked Alex up. The kid was burning up.
Well, fuck. The insect bite that we’d ignored was now making him sick as fcuk.
I heard Alex calling “Let’s go see Mommy. Let’s go see Mommy” so I knew he was up. As Dave changed his diaper, I went to give him a kiss. The sight before my eyes made me tear up with non-self-pitying tears. Alex now looked as though he’d been thoroughly beaten. His left eye was nearly swollen shut, bruised and pink and his cheek looked like he’d been smuggling marbles.
I sighed, went back upstairs to put pants on, wiping tears from my eyes (he looked THAT bad) and got dressed. Dave woke Amelia up. It was Hospital Time.
Choosing to go to the ER at the hospital that Mimi had her surgery because they boasted a pediatric ER, we headed off.
We got there, parked, and trundled in, looking as bedraggled as we’d ever been. We joked that they were going to call CPS on us after seeing Alex’s face. Alex was cheerful, though, more so than Dave or I, and Amelia just looked dazed. Pleased by my choice, we walked down a deserted hallway to get to the ER.
Score, I said to myself. It looks DEAD here. Perfect.
As we rounded the corner, we came to a line. Of people. Fuck. At the head of the line was a lumpy Jabba-The-Hut-I-Have-No-Angles type woman who was robotically taking names and entering them into a computer. Everywhere I looked, every chair, every available surface was covered by sick people.
We checked in eventually, where I confused the receptionist by asking if there was somewhere that I could sit that wasn’t full of contagious sick people. Alex had something, but it wasn’t spreading. She was unable to knock her remaining 2 synapses together and just stared vacantly at me.
Okay, then.
An hour went by, Amelia got reswaddled and fell back asleep while Alex continually grabbed my hand and yelled “let’s GO Mommy” every time we went back near the entrance. I tried to avoid touching any surfaces and breathing deeply. After that hour we still hadn’t been seen by triage, so I went back to the dazed receptionist to see what the wait was like.
When she said 3 hours, I nearly decked her. Information that might have been useful when I checked in.
At 2:30 in the morning, we were back on the road, headed to another hospital. The beauty of living where I do is that it’s not insanely populated. While there are people who assumably need ER’s, a wait like 3 hours is nearly unheard of.
We checked in to hospital #2 and were barely done putting the bracelet on Alex’s arm before we were whisked back to a room by a nurse. 10 minutes later, we saw the doctor. 5 minutes after that, we had a diagnosis and some antibiotics ordered from the pharmacy.
The longest part of the second hospital visit was waiting to make sure that Alex didn’t go into anaphylaxis from the antibiotic shot (he’s never been on antibiotics. Which, now that I think about it, explains the massive diarrhea today. Anyhow, moving on). For 20 minutes, we crawled the halls, looking into each room for Happy’s (the pain chart faces).
It was great until I realized how fucking heavy 30 pounds is and that one of the rooms we were peering into had a corpse in it. Then I felt kinda voyeuristic.
We left, sans anaphylaxis, with strict orders that should this not improve, Alex will be admitted for IV antibiotics. Which sounds like hell. Unless they sedate us both. Then I could totally get behind it.
He’s better today than yesterday. He’s a little less puffy and looks even more like he’s been in a wicked bar-fight (you should SEE the other guy! Yuk-yuk-yuk).
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How are YOU today? Any good hospital (boner) stories for Aunt Becky today?
I like those Pain Faces charts. I always try to mimic them when I’m there for something.
Poor guy! And there is nothing worse than a middle of the night ER visit! Why do kids ALWAYS wait until the middle of the night to go and require medical attention?
Caleb’s first ER visit came at about 6 weeks old. He had a fever of 101, so I called the Dr. thinking they would tell me to give him some Tylenol and call them in the morning. Nope. Rush him to the ER. Let me tell you, post-partum depression and the words “You need to take him to the ER” DO NOT a happy mommy make.
2nd visit was b/c he whacked his head at the sitter, and when I called the Dr. they said just watch him, wake him up every 2 hours tonight, if he throws up in the next 24 hours call us. When I went to wake him up the 1st time, he had puked EVERYWHERE and had not even woken up. Then puked 2 more times. So, we took him to the ER where we waited 3 hours for an MRI that was clear, of course (when we got home at 6 a.m. he started exhibiting other signs of THE FLU). But we did get to witness the drunk guy who had jumped off the top of a car and had to be airlifted to a bigger hospital. Not smart buddy. Not smart at all.
Oh, I’m so sorry! But glad he’s all better!
Poor guy! YAY for no reaction to the anti-biotics! I don’t have any boner stories as of yet. Maybe tomorrow. I’ll let ya kn ow ;o)
*HUGS*
Allergies are something I am terrified of, simply because I know NOTHING about them and have ZERO experience with them. If my kid woke up all swollen like that I’d freak out too.
Oh, honey, I feel your pain. I’m not even going to go into our ER visits, doctor visits, plastic surgeon visits of the past four days. You’ll just have to read of my/our misery over at my place if you give a shit.
Glad Alex is better, and I’m totally jealous that you have a couple choices for ER’s. The only close one we have is a fucking disgrace!!
I HATE ERs WITH A BLAZING HOT PASSION!!!!
I am not a sick or accident prone person, so I had never had the pleasure of experiencing an ER until I was 3 months pregnant. I started bleeding, on a Saturday of all days, and was instructed by my doctor’s oncall service to go to the ER. Sure that I was miscarriaging I nervously signed all the paperwork and waited. and waited. and waited.
You would think a bleeding pregnant girl would take presidence over the lady sitting next to me with the cold (true story!) After 3 hours, I had had enough. I ripped the bracelet off my wrist and stormed out the door. Never even being examined by a doctor.
Turns out everything was ok. My doctor said the bleeding was due to having intercourse the morning of the ER visit. Oooops! That was an embarassing conclusion to come to with your doc.
Hope your little man is back to normal soon:(
Poor baby! I hope he is better soon! I have far too many er horror/torture stories to share!
Hey Aunt Becky,
So sorry to hear about the little guy. My little guy had to go to the ER a couple months back for a severe allergic reaction to something. We never found out what it was, but it sure was scary! He had hives all over his body, and his face was all swollen too. Couple days of steroids cleared it up.
I also just wrote a post yesterday about going to the ER for a completely different reason:
http://justmeandthevoices.com/2009/05/27/body-cavity-search/
Hopefully it will cheer you up!
We are very lucky to be 3 minutes from a satalite childrens hospital urgent care…….. when my daughter started choking at 3 weeks old and wouldnt stop (she was literally creating spit foam coming out of her mouth) i was NEVER so grateful to be that close, those 3 minutes were some of the longest of my life (it turned out to be silent reflux and she wasnt choking as much as she was reacting to the horrible pain of it we later learned)….. they wisked us back right away……. when I had to go twice more because the reflux just wouldnt stop we had very similar treatment. What I want to know is why do my kids need to go in the middle of the night when their daddy is out of town??? SOOO stressful……
I can’t believe the first ER didn’t have somewhere specific for the kids. I volunteered for awhile in a Peds acute care unit when we lived in NC, and not only did they have a special kids waiting area, they usually got you back into a (private) room as soon as they could so you didn’t have to sit around in the germs.
We took G once for a very high temperature, and seeing it from the other side, I was still pretty impressed with it.
Plus the one time I had to go in with kidney stones and take G with me, they were quick to get me into a private room for his sake too.
We had a few choices of ERs too, and this one would have been my first choice forever if we stayed in NC. Hope Alex keeps on improving!
My last ER visit was while we were on vacation. In Disney World. Baby Girl crawled for the very first time on the condo floor and then promptly threw up her breakfast. And then didn’t stop. She got dehydrated and our ped from home (whose cell number is programmed into mine) sent us to the ER. If ever in Orlando and need an ER, go to Celebration (University of Florida Hospital). Yes, we waited f-o-r-e-v-e-r, but they made the whole thing pleasant. Some lady actually came into the room with a “bag of tricks” to make my 1-year-old happy – bubbles, music, etc. And THEN, she came back just before we were discharged with a sandwich for ME! That kinda stuff just doesn’t happen in busy ER’s. Unfortunately, this is now the standard by which I measure all other ER’s.
Poor Alex. Glad he is on the mend. Had myself my own 2.5 hrs in A&E a couple of weeks ago when the boy fell on to concrete – what a joy. At least peds is in a different zone so no need to linger with the usual drunks etc who seem to live in the adult bit.
I hope the corpse had a smiley face on the door.
Funny, the hospital here with a pediatrician on call in the ER 24/7 triages kids separately. I find it hard to imagine at 2:30 a.m. the triage wait for a kid would be that long? Even in your neck of the woods? (I’m right by a major city too, ya know)
We’ve taken Bella twice; once for a split knee that wouldn’t come together under the bandaid (on a weekend) and I thought might need stitches — we stupidly went to non kids hospital and by the time they saw her three hours later, the bandaid I had applied had pulled stuff together quite nicely, thank you. Got major props from the ER doc for my time I’m never getting back.
The other time was for an earache gone mad avec fever AND rash and was just trending a little too close to meningitis for my liking. We made the decision here to go to hosptial with kids section (it was a weekend), were seen within minutes.
Sorry for the schlep — I really hope he’s feeling better.
Is it just me, or does everyone get a sore throat the minute they walk into a hospital/ER/doctor’s office waiting room?
And WTF with the 3 hour wait at 1am on a weekday?
Glad he’s doing better!
Good god! Glad the antibiotics are kickin in.
I am *so* not looking forward to ER visits with the munchkin. I’m sorry you had to go through that!
One time in college, a friend and I had to take my roommate to the ER on Easter. We didn’t go back to the exam room with her, so we were left in the waiting room to amuse ourselves and avoid school work. We ended up spending some quality time in the public bathroom, practicing a kickline in the mirror.
On our way back to the waiting room, we passed the security guard’s station. It was filled with video monitors. Including the mirror in the women’s bathroom.
Hope he enjoyed the show!
Shoule their be a next time, and I hope there isn’t – call an ambulance ‘cuz they get priority treatment at the ER. Don’t ask me how I know….I just do.
I’m glad the little guy is feeling a little better. That sounds scary!
Poor Alex! That sux, I hate ERs too, with a passion. I’m glad he’s all better and at least he’ll have a really cool story to tell when he’s older (that is, if he remembers this incident at all).
I don’t have any kids, but I had to take my mother once. She had tripped and fallen into a big garbage can, breaking her wrist. After fighting with her for two hours and finally convincing her that her wrist should not look like a grapefruit, I finally got her to the ER. Of course once we got there I made her tell everyone that she had broken her wrist by falling into a garbage can. It went downhill though when after three hours she finally was put into a room to wait for another hour. We were entertained by some loud man joking around outside our door for a good 45 minutes. Only to find out the reason we waited so long in the room was because that was our doctor shooting the shit outside our door. He wasn’t very happy with my attitude after that. And he was even less impressed when I asked if it was a technical term, when he showed us her xray and said he thought her wrist was broken because there was a “blip” right there. I told my mom no more falling into garbage cans after that.
Poor Alex! We were there in February with Beans after an unpleasant visit from Uncle Rota. It was lovely: IVs, blown veins, diarreah and vomit a-plenty. Good times, good times.
Hope the little big brother is feeling better soon!
I’m not going to tempt fate into giving me a worse ER story than the ones I already have, so I will just say that I’m glad Alex is feeling better! What a night!
Oh, Becky, that sounds just awful! And I can’t imagine the words that would have (wanted to) come spewing out of my mouth when I was told it would be another 3 hours. (I am constantly telling people off in my head, though it usually just comes out as sputtering.)
I am a little reminded of when my oldest was about 9 months old and acting off, so I trundled him off to urgent care (I don’t think I’m a hyper-nervous mom, but I do take the kids to urgent care fairly often. Part of me thinks it’s just to get the hell out of the house.) to be diagnosed with an ear infection. When we got there, we were told he was wheezing (which I couldn’t really hear; I still worry it’s there and I’m not hearing it, every time he gets a cold) and that his pulse ox was 89. They nebulized him–great fun–then left for a few minutes. When they came back, they told me I needed to call my husband and tell him to meet me at Children’s Hospital, because the ambulance was on its way for us. I am almost crying just thinking about that trip. He ended up hospitalized overnight (thank god for living so close to a Children’s Hospital) and was diagnosed with a whole host of things, but I think it was bronchiolitis, which near as I can tell means “wheezing when they get a cold but usually outgrown by about age 2.” He did outgrow it, and he never got that bad again.
The staff, at the doctor’s office and at the hospital, was great. But I sincerely hope I never have to go through anything remotely like that again.
Oh, my, so sorry. Very stressful. I HATE MEDICAL STUFF.
We have a peds hospital so that is the ER we always go to. WG is cursed with loose joints and low tone. She has dislocated her elbows many many times. I have lost count. You can look at her funny and her elbow will dislocate. We had to put her on a leash because if we held her hand and she slightly jerked away her elbow would dislocate and we’d have to head for the ER. After the first half-dozen times I got pretty adept at reducing them myself but if I don’t get it the first time I feel like I’m torturing her and schlep her into the ER. They have a separate waiting room for injured patients and injuries seem to take precedence over sickness.
Of all the times we’ve taken her to the ER there was only one due to parental freak out. She wouldn’t stop screaming, and being language delayed, couldn’t tell us what was wrong. We thought she was screaming louder when we touched her arm, so we assumed she had dislocated her elbow. This was only the second time she had dislocated it, and we had been very much chided the first time for not getting her in soon enough (they almost couldn’t reduce it the first time), so we packed her off to the ER. Turned out that her shoe was pinching her toe. As soon as we took her shoes off to put her gown on she was healed.
The instructions on the discharge papers were, “Have the child measured for new shoes.” We saved that one along with the one that said, “It is inadvisable to insert foreign objects in one’s nose.”
BTW, I’m happy Alex is okay and I hope his poop is back to normal soon!
🙁 poooooor little man! what kind of bug was this exactly???
My hospital story is as follows.
I was pregnant and afraid of hospitals so I meandered around northern michigan shopping for midwives. I found one that I thought was legit. I paid her money to come to my home and assist the birth of my precious little man. Now. Either I suck at giving birth or said midwife is junk. I go into labor. my husband is great, all encouraging and stuff. my mother is great. all encouraging and irritating and stuff. after laboring for ohhh 11 hours and pushing, PUSHING for 3 of them i say fuck this. i want a hospital with a DOCTOR and an EPISIOTOMY and what I really want is for this enormous f-ing child NOT to be stuck inside this tiny ass canal. Midwife says “you do not need a hospital” I nearly clean her clock with my wonderfully Puffy fists. We drive 25 miles to the nearest hospital with my poor cervix dialated to TEN. My child chilling at like +2 or something, whatever that EVEN MEANS? and me shouting random obsentities as my husband hits bumps to be funny. (love him). we arrive. to a, shit you not, revolving door. a revolving door. in a hospital. at the urgent care entrance. that is just mean. my pregnant ass falls down, mid contraction inside the revolving door compartment. my mother is behind me. SHOVING the door to budge my fat baby having ass just a tad further and actually into the hospital. she accomplishesher goal and I am screaming hail mary as all of these cancer patients wonder what is wrong with me.. we went in the wrong door. there is no L&D door i guess.
this is really long.
I get in a chair. some nurse who has never seen anyone in labor is running with me down the hallway. they designate room 7 for me. that is all i remember them saying. and me telling them is the horrible labor voice, i have innnnssuuuuuuuurance i prroooooomise, please be nice to me. i stand up as THREE different people begin to strip the clothes off of me. now mind you I was in a birth tub at home so i am still wet. wearing my husbands jogging pants. a t shirt that wouldnt fit me when I wasnt pregnant and some shoes. I have stuffed a WHITE towel into my pants and in between my legs to stop the wonderful flow of mother goo. they pull the towel out. the formerly white towel. and ask if I want to KEEP it. ???? ummmmm sure? NO. labor continues. Ivs are being attempted. an antheseoligist or however you spell that is prepping me for surgery. my child is stuck. just like I had said he was 2 hours prior. there is a room FULL of people. like a party. a party where there is actually oxygen going into your system instead of cool things like whippets. whippets are great.
10 minutes later a baby is born. I pass out. everyone says yay. i got my episitomy and my stitches. during which the nurse is talking to me. food? drink? do you hate hospitals? did you forget to come? “no, I have been in labor since 5am this morning… ”
My little guy was born at 4pm.
the look people who work in obstetrics give you…
is priceless.
entertaining yes. funny no. well, to me yes. 🙂 I really hope your little guy gets better very soon!
Glad Alex is doing better. It is a sin the way hospitals make you wait for hours. Ours are no better.
I had to take my husband in for a sever allergic reaction to creosote which is a preservative on railroad ties. We were landscaping and cutting them. His whole body swelled up to twice it’s size.
I told the young (12 year old) doctor what I suspected and what we were doing. He looked at me and said “what is creosote, and could you spell it?”
Somedays, I think I am too old for this world!
No ER stories..except for the time I had to get a rabies shot after cutting myself with my scalpel pulling a brainstem out of a raccoon that might have been rabid..smooth move, huh? Just wanted to tell you again how sorry I am that Alex (and the fam) went though all that! Hope he gets better and better each hour.
The very idea of a 3 hour, middle of the night ER wait has made me just now force my kids to take a vow not to get sick, break a bone or generally freak me out from now until they are adults and out of the house and off my insurance. Gah!
I’m glad Alex is doing better, though! That photo yesterday was a doozy. And now I sound like a grandma. I should probably go see a doctor for that, but no. No, I will not!
I’m just really glad your boy is better.
One fourth of July, I dropped a gigantic chafing dish directly onto my foot. My foot swelled up like a crazy purple soccer ball attached to my foot and my foot was split open across the top. I still refused to go to the ER. It was 4pm on July 4 and there was no fargin way I was going to spend 6 hours hanging out in the waiting room with every dumbass who wrecked their jet ski or blasted off a finger with a firecracker. My foot healed ok and is only slightly clubbish.
So, not my ER story, mine is from inpatient, BUT we know it happened to a couple in the ER, too.
So, the kid drinks super fancy special formula, right? Super. Fancy. $40 a can. Special. Plus it has to have fancy stuff to make it thick so he doesn’t reflux, aspirate, and get pneumonia. SO. After the awful 3-weeks stay, we bounce back with a stomach virus 2 days later. Can’t send him home again until he can tolerate food, again. Day 1, just fluids, fine and dandy. Day 2, getting late, I’m all “ok, he hasn’t thrown up in 36 hours, how’s about that FORMULA?”
“Well,” they say, “that formula is in the milk lab, and the milk lab is … closed for the night. Did you BRING any? Oh wait, the kitchen would have to clear it if you did, and they’re closing now too.” And we did NOT bring any, knowing he’d be inpatient until he could tolerate it, and was NOT tolerating it at home.
After I told them how THRILLED my insurance company was going to be about paying for an extra night PLUS how my husband’s job was going to LOVE him taking another day off, and oh by the way I haven’t slept in almost a month so you’d better watch it before I hurt someone … two nurses stole some keys from someone, rummaged through the stack, FOUND the milk lab key, stole a full can of formula, and then broke into the kitchen and stole some thickener. Came back all flushed and proud of themselves, like secret agents with mission complete.
2 weeks later, we’re back AGAIN (fever this time, had to have bloods run), and there’s this other couple with a baby. Said baby also drinks super fancy formula, his parents did not bring any, it’s the middle of the night, baby is hungry. Well, when next we saw them, the baby was being fed, so you know there was another set of secret agent nurses lurking in the darkened milk lab.
Glad he’s doing better!
We’ve made many trips to the ER, but the most absurd was when my son was three and he got Walking Pneumonia. We took him to the ER and they gave him a shot of antibiotic in the top of his thigh. He wailed like a Banshee and insisted that he could not walk. He kept screaming at the top of his lungs “Oh my pain! Oh, my pain!”. The other patients must have wondered what ungodly torture the doctors were putting him through. He absolutely, positively DEMANDED a wheelchair to leave the building and of course, he got it.
Just stumbled upon your blog and I love it. And Amelia is my absolute favorite girl’s name. I’m not even pregnant with #2 yet but I am already lobbying for that name in case we have a girl.
Yikes. How am I? Pretty damned grateful after reading that! All’s we got over here now is a pesky little tickly cough.
Shit I love your little tag line.
We had four trips to the ER last year. First, I made the mistake of telling someone that my kids had never had stitches, so like two days later, a girl was pretending to trip T as he was running down the sidewalk, and he really tripped over her foot. He hit his eyebrow on a cement wall, and came to me just gushing blood. We went to the ER and they glued it shut. Two weeks later, Alex was scootering and closing his eyes at T’s baseball practice, and he hit some gravel and endoed over the front of the scooter into the corner of the bleachers…yup, you guessed it…eyebrow stitches again. We went to a GHETTO ER, and there were all of these scary trailer trash drunk people laying on the benches, and luckily we were taken back there pretty fast. They glued him up too, but there was an old lady next to us that wanted the dr. to wash her feet and cut her toenails, since she’s escaped the old folks’ home and taken the bus to the hospital. They offered her a sandwich, and brought her one that she didn’t like, so she asked for another one, and some soup! It was crazy. The third one was for Alex because he had MRSA on his arm, and it had to be drained, then T got it a few weeks later around his fingernail from biting it. I’m done with hospitals…knock wood!
Diarrhea? iwell since this is the first time he’s been on Anti-biotics (wholly crap, I applaud you for that) keep and eye on that diarrhea, and make sure he doesn’t get a thrush bottom like my son does..it just makes fighting it 10x’s worse, so now when I go and their like were gonna give him some antibiotics I’m like well then prescribe some Nystatin too.
I hope he gets used to it, otherwise when he is older and married, he gonna be like” honey, can you go to the store and get me some Monistat!”
sucks.
When I was younger, I developed a bad habit called Eating Foods That Caused Anaphylaxis And Being Rushed To The ER. Once there, the kind doctors and nurses pumped me full of steroids and benadryl-type medications to stop the allergic reaction. All of these medications make me VERY VERY VERY sleepy and drunk.
So one time, about 15 years ago, my husband got to witness this little debacle for the first time. Everything was going well until he stepped out to get a soda and came back to find me missing. “Where’s my wife???” he asked the nurse. Turns out, I decided to go pee and FELL ASLEEP IN THE BATHROOM WHILE SITTING ON THE TOILET. Fun times.
hope he is feeling a ton better!
when ryan was little he was dx’d with asthma (finally! after MANY mis-dx’s of pneumonia and the docs wondering if he had CF). i knew nothing about asthma as it does not run in my side of the family and ‘the dude that got me preggo’ was not in our lives so no idea of his medical history (although I do recall him telling me that not a lot of guys in his family live past 50 because of heart issues, but i digress). So one evening his chest is retracting while he is sleeping and after a miserable nurse line conversation with the nurse asking me 12 times if he swallowed a button – i finally brought him to the ER. His sats were hovering in the low to mid 80’s when we got there so he was brought right back. Well after several neb treatments and O2, he was perking up, but sats were not holding steady. So the admitted us for 24 hours and my ‘sick’ child proceded to bounce all over the place, running around, and eating them out of house and home. I got no sleep and was worried sick and was wondering if the docs thought I was crazy for bringing him in as he wasn’t ‘looking or acting’ ill, but I am glad I did. Amazing what some albuterol does to a person – perhaps I should try that in place of my coffee…
Poor baby! Yeah, ERs suck ass. I poked myself in the eye once with tweezers (plucking my eyebrows gone wrong because I’m retarded), and things started getting painful and blurry. Afraid I was going to lose my eyesight, TH took me to the ER and I was labelled as “stab wound.” I still had to wait two hours. And all I could think was, “Some guy gets into a knife fight, is stabbed, rushed to the ER aaaaaaaand…. dies in the waiting room.
Poor guy. I hope he’s doing better today.
I’ve been to the ER once and it was a frightening experience. I hope I never have to go again. *Knocks frantically on wood*
ERs suck so bad, I hate them – the bigger the hospital the worse it is. If we need an ER we try the band-aid station sized hospitals first.
Oh dear. The thought of going to the ER in the middle of the night with TWO babies does not sound like a good time.
I’m glad Alex is on the road to recovery.
Now, for a good boner story…um… how can I not know any good boner related stories? WTF?
Aye, yi, yi, Becky. I wish you could get a break already. It’s enough. I hope he’s back to ‘normal’ 🙂 in no time flat and that those home visits become unnecessary asap.
xxoo
Jeez, Becks. What a night! Thank God you had a 2nd ER nearby.
Well, let’s see. You already know about my trip to the hospital with pneumonia – big fun. I think I already told you about the miserable ER doc who told me I was miscarrying Bean at 9 weeks and there was nothing he could do for me and why was I taking up his valuable time, right?
My other trip to the ER was after I crashed my car 2 weeks before high school graduation and tried to exit my car via the windshield using my face, which I don’t recommend. The nurse at the ER tried to torture me by digging the needle with the local around in my eye socket until an intern took pity on my begging and shooed her away to do it much more gently. I think I promised him something sexual. They thought I would need plastic surgery to repair my forehead and the area around my eyebrow but as it turns out, I am an amazing fucking healer, and some heavily gooped Neosporin for a few weeks did the trick.
Bean’s been to the ER twice thus far. Once, last summer when he split his forehead open like an overripe tomato after a fall at daycare. We got right in, he got 3 stitches and was only pissed when we held him down to get those. The next day, he plucked every stitch out. Surgeons couldn’t have taken them out any more precisely.
Then one Saturday morning he woke up and there was blood coming out his ear. I freaked out more than with the forehead thing. Turns out he had a bad ear infection and his eardrum ruptured, which sounds awful but really only requires antibiotics as usual. He never even cried except when they wouldn’t let him have the oxygen tubing to yank out of the wall. Good times!
Jeez that sounds awful! Hope he’s feeling better. When are you going to call the doctor about your headaches?
Well, since you asked, I have 2 ER stories, and even a combo ER-boner story.
My youngest son has been incredibly accident prone (his dad is, too). When he was 2, we went camping and another child accidentally hit him in the face with an entrenching tool, which is a pointy shovel used to dig trenches. A few millimeters to the left or right and his eye would have been gone. Luckily, he just had a small slice on his cheek and in between his eyes. Didn’t even need stitches, and he has some cool scars.
Then, about a year later, he and his older brother were playing on the tile floor of our apartment, and he fell flat on his face, knocking his front to teeth almost completely out, but not quite. There was blood gushing everywhere, and his teeth were just hanging. It was gross and scary, and I was never more glad that their father was actually home at the time. We rushed to the ER, waited about two hours, and then were sent with an army dentist (we followed him in his truck) to one of the dental clinics on post to get the teeth pulled. The poor boy didn’t have front teeth for about two years, until his permanent teeth finally came. He looked super cute, though!
A few months after that escapade, the boys were playing in their room, throwing a ball into the top bunk of their bed, when said ball hits the light cover, breaking it and lodging a chunk of glass into my little one’s collarbone. Yeah, right next to a major artery. Luckily (again), it hit the bone and damage was pretty minimal. He had to have stitches and has a huge scar there, which he still claims hurts if you touch it too hard. I was actually worried that the doctors would think that WE were doing bad things to him, since we’d been there not too long before with his teeth dangling in his mouth.
Now for the boner/ER story: once when Douche took me to the ER for a terrible migraine that wouldn’t go away with my usual meds, they gave me something that made me all loopy. I was lying in the bed, all drugged up and feeling weak, and Douche actually tried to have sex with me! Right there in the ER! I shit you not. I could have killed him. This is the same man who tried to have sex with me the day after I had all four wisdom teeth pulled. Jackass.
I know I said 2 stories and gave you three, but we didn’t go to the ER with the first one. Douche and the other guy who was camping with us were medics who worked in the ER and knew he was okay.
((hug))
I’ve only taken Monkey to the ER once because he was jumping off the couch repeatedly and hurt his ankle. It was all swollen up and he couldn’t walk so I took him in & he had x-rays. (Just a sprain, woo hoo!) The only funny part was that when she was taking Monkey into the x-ray room the technician looked at me and asked, “Is there any chance you could be pregnant?” and, as I was then approximately 8½ months into my pregnancy, I said, “Yeah, it’s pretty likely.” She looked at me and her face turned all red. Not that funny but anyway. That’s the only time we’ve ever taken a kid to the ER. Fun fun.
But did he look like a chipmunk hoarding a grapefruit-sized cache? My lil’ guy is recovering from some wicked bug that sent his fever sky high despite tylenol and advil BOTH (staggered doses). Topping it off was facial swelling that earned him a diagnosis of possible mumps and a prescription for antibiotics “just to be safe.” Not fun.