I know. I know. Two posts in one evening when there has been nothing for over a month. Paul's watching a movie that I just can't get into and I've got my laptop on my lap so what better to do...
Ever had one of those bad mommy moments? Yeah, well they feel like a daily occurence sometimes for me, but this week I really had one. Noah's had this cough for about a week that I had been trying to ignore. He seemed to feel fine otherwise so I thought no big deal. Well, I was wrong. Monday afternoon he pokes himself in the eye and won't take his hand off his eye for over an hour. Everytime I try to check it out he screams so finally I decide to take him to the Acute Kids Care place when they open at 5pm. (an ER alternative for kiddos like mine who can't manage to get sick or injured during regular business hours). We go into the exam room where the nurse does her usual routine checking of the temp, etc. She puts this probe on his finger and as it beeps mutters, "That's interesting." She then leaves the room and comes back with another machine thinking the first one must not be working correctly. It was. She then asks if he has been sick. At first I said no, not even thinking about the cough, but then said, "Oh well, he has had a little bit of a cough recently..." The doctor then comes in quickly checks his eye (which was fine) and then says, "Now to address the more serious issue with his lungs." HUH?!? His oxygen level was at 89% and he was in respiratory distress. Yes, you read that right. They gave him 3 breathing treatments with oral steroids and it still didn't help. The dr. them comes back in to tell me that they have paged my regular ped. to see if he wants him admitted to the hospital right away. WHAT? I brought him in for a scratched eye - what are you talking about - did you get my exam room mixed up with the kid next door? Anyway, apparently my little trooper who never shows us when he's sick had been struggling to breathe and we didn't even realize it. They decided not to admit him for the time being and instead sent us home with a nebulizer to give him breathing treatments at home every three hours. Well, when I went to give him his first one after he was asleep, he was breathing really hard and his lips were blue. Needless to say, we were at the ER in no time. Of course, once we got there, the breathing treatments finally started to kick in and he improved, so by the time we were actually seen by the dr. he was back up to 97% . We got home around 3am - just in time for the steroids to kick in. The pharmacist warned us about "roid rage" and boy was he right. For those who don't know Noah well, he has a bit of a temper. So combined with the steroids, he was quite a delight at 3am with no sleep and a breathing mask stuck to his face. Of course, the whole time I'm thinking, "but he only poked his eye..."
The waiting room at the ER was quite entertaining though. It was almost standing room only when we arrived. I managed to find a seat near a lady about my age moaning rather loudly about how much pain she was in. I looked around at the crowd and quickly realized they all knew each other and had basically come to "support" grandpa who was having a spell with his high blood pressure. We're talking about 20+ people ranging in age from toddler to grandma, just hanging out watching the travel network on the lobby tv while gramps was being checked out...at 11:30pm...
Now back to the moaning lady. Her mother comes in after getting some sodas from the vending machine, and the drama really begins to increase. The daughter starts moaning even louder and proceeds to lay down on the floor - which happens to be right in the main walkway of the waiting room. She's going on and on about her gall bladder. Well, her mom starts raising a ruckus about how they are just letting her suffer out in the waiting room instead of putting her in a room. They assure her she will be seen in the order of the priority of her need. The mother then basically sneaks back into the ER when another patient is leaving and starts screaming at everyone like a lunatic. She is escorted back out where the staff threatens to call the police if she doesn't stop. At this point, the daughter who has been moaning that she can't move and is in the worst pain of her life pops up and storms out declaring, "we're going to sue your sorry %&@(# for negligence." At least it kept me entertained while waiting for a room. The ironic part was that about two minutes after they stormed out, another nurse came out and called their name for a room...
Anyway, fortunately all is well now (I think...) and we have begun seeing a chiropractor who is going to help us change some things in our lives to a more natural diet and way of life to hopefully prevent some of this health drama in the future.
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