I am sure there will be a lot of ER visits and broken bones in my future, having 3 boys and all. Up to this point, however, things have been pretty quiet on the medical front. We have made 2 trauma dental visits and 2 after hour care respiratory visits, but no ER.
I actually diligently avoid the ER. It is expensive and takes so much time! In the middle of the night when Roman could barely breathe I would neb, check capillary refill and check for pinkness. Monitoring, monitoring, and hoping things wouldn't get worse. And telling myself continually that the best place for him was at home. I didn't need to go to the ER for simple reassurance, and they really hesitate to admit healthy kids with respiratory ailments because of all of the hospital germs.
As a child I did get stitches twice. Once when I cut my lip open on a fireplace fall and once when I dropped a glass pop bottle and got a piece of glass in my leg. Of course that was after I had confidently assured everyone that I WOULD NOT drop the glass bottle.
When I was a sponsor on a high school missions trip to New Orleans I spent a number of hours in an ED there with one of the students. It was suspected that she may have broken her nose. All I remember about the experience was that it was really, really cold. A little overkill with the AC.
My next time in the ED was when I was newly married and in my first year of hospital work as a RN. I was walking across the street (in the cross walk but against the light) from the parking lot to the hospital. Right in front of the ED. I got hit by a car and thrown through the air. Anyway, they brought me into the ED, of course. Pretty embarrassing. I was fine. I had some Xrays and a pretty scary ride on a gurney thing. Ended up with some PT for my knee. It wasn't a true ED visit, however, because I didn't have to wait at all. I was wheeled in, taken care of and sent home. (They covered my shift, wasn't that nice).
My last time in the ED didn't end up being a true visit either. I was about 32 weeks pregnant with Lincoln and I got the flu or food poisoning or something. I am one of those people that generally does not vomit, and if I do it is usually once. Or twice. Anyway, I was SO SICK and was getting really dehydrated. My OB decided that I should go in and get fluids. She said just to go to the hospital and they would decide there based on who was busier if I would be treated in the ED or Labor and Delivery. We got there and the ED was packed, apparently. Because I was so far along a L & D nurse was going to have to be in the ED monitoring me and the baby anyway, so they just sent me up to L & D where I was treated promptly with some fluids and sent home. (I was very pleased that the nurse agreed that it was time to come in. A 32 week pregnant woman who needs 2-3 liters before she even needs to pee is a seriously dehydrated person!) Oops. Did I just let the Too Much Information Turtle out?
Anyway, on the cold, snowy Monday- what are your ED stories?
5 comments:
I have unfortunately had more than my fair share of ED/ER visits, the funny thing is that I don't consider myself a klutz.
So two stories that coincide nicely would be my disclocated elbow at age 3, and my broken arm at age 7. The elbow incident started with my brother and I playing at a construction site (my parent's current home), we learned this great trick from watching the Ewok Adventures (remember everyone, kids will imitate stupid things they see on tv / in movies). The trick consisted of putting a 2x4 on a fulcrum (we used a large log), then having a kid stand on one end of the 2x4 while another kid jumped on the opposite side. The temporary feeling of weightlessness was great - and it worked several times, until one time my brother launched me and I came down on my arm. Not good. Anyway, we went to the ER for that.
A short four years later my brother had the ladder to the treehouse in the woods so he could build a fort. That left me with the option of climbing up a tree and sliding out on a limb to get into the tree house. Again, this worked several times before the branch gave out and I managed to break the lower part of my arm, right on the growth plate, and I *almost* got to see a compound fracture, but the last few layers of skin held the bone in place. Anyway, went to the ER again, had the same doctor as before, and my parents got to have a little chat about child abuse - they weren't too happy about that :-) (Oh, and that morning I had asked my Dad if he could come home early from work, he said 'no'... but I won out in the end)
Of course this doesn't include the slashed finger at my 16th birthday party, the smashed face from snowboarding in Colorado, a couple broken fingers, sprained ankle, etc. etc.
I was only in once when I was a kid, for stitches in the forehead (corner of TV-fun)
I've taken Miles to the ER once at 4 months because the RN on the line told me to go. I'm glad we did, but he really would have been fine. He had vomited so many times he was getting to the bile stage and was listless and dehydrated. He ended up stopping and nursing while we waited and waited and waited.
I've surprisingly only taken Asher once-it wasn't hydrocephalus related. He had cried for four hours straight and was in major pain. Turned out he was SUPER constipated, which I knew, but didn't realize how much AIR was in there. Poor guy.
That's it. I pray my ER stories don't get more interesting as the years with boys go by. Please God, PLEASE???
It must be within a few days of exactly 24 years ago. Temperatures outside were in the deep freeze (sound familiar?). On the weekend, the old red station wagon would not start. It was way too cold to work on it - even in the garage, so on Monday morning it still wasn't working.
Elise tripped and hit her head on the corner of a book shelf. If I had known what I knew after, I would have done things differently, but hind sight is, of course,20/20.
There I was with a little kid bleeding from her forehead (making it seem worse than it really was), Chris at work, and me without a car. I called the police, and they called an ambulance.
The embarrassing part is that it was late morning (very late morning) and Elise was still in her pajamas. While we waited for the police to arrive, I changed her into a cute little corduroy overall outfit and saved face.
The ambulance came and we had a very expensive ride to the Unity Hospital ER. We waited in the ER and then went in to have her stitched up. They put a cloth over her head to isolate the area for stitches and she panicked even though I was holding her hand. Although I was choaked up, I managed to let her know I was there, and then she was fine. She got three stitches.
They gave her a hot wheels toy ambulance; a $250 toy, as it turned out.
Had I known the ambulance ride was was going to be that costly and the injury that much of a non-emergency, I would have had Chris come home from work and take us to the doctor's office. The loss of time at work would have been much less expensive.
My mother-in-law said she would have applied a butterfly band aid and stayed at home. Who knows? Maybe that would have been just as good.
No ED/ER visits for me... you know Julie, I think that you were the only one of us kids that ever did go. I think I went to the after hours urgent care for an ear infection. I also haven't really broken any bones...maybe my baby toe but mom and dad would never take me in to find out. Oh my life is so uneventful...:(
I never thought about the benefit you have being a nurse mom - being able to check things that us non-medical people don't know.
I've been the ER once, but I won't share why, too personal. Nothing life threatening, just painful and had no other options.
As for the boys, we've had at least 2 dental "emergencies" (Ethan) and no trips to the ER for either, thank goodness, though Ethan broke his arm when he was 4
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