NOT Where You Want To Spend Your Saturday Night

In the Emergency Room that is.

In fact, if possible, avoid it at all costs.

But if you can’t, I hope you get in and out quicker than we did with Colton this past Saturday.

BACKGROUND INFO:

Colton was uncharacteristically fussy and did not sleep well on Thursday night, but he wasn’t exhibiting any signs of fever or illness so I just chalked it off to perhaps another tooth getting ready to break through.

As usual, I dropped him off at daycare Friday morning without incident.

Shortly after lunch, I got a call from the daycare letting me know that Colton felt hot and he was running a bit of a fever (a little over 99 degrees).

They faxed me the permission slip to give him Motrin and I signed it and faxed it back. I asked them if I needed to come and get him, but they said that other than feeling a bit hot he was acting fine.

Nevertheless, being a mommy, I decided to slip out early and go get my babe.

When I got there he was warm, but not hot, and in fact he smiled a great big smile when he saw me.

At home I gave him a tepid bath and some more fever medicine.

From experience with R.J., I knew how to administer the alternating Tylenol/Motrin, Tylenol/Motrin routine to get his fever under control (or so I thought).

Friday night was a nightmare…NO SLEEP for Colton and NO SLEEP for mommy.

Once again, the fussiness kicked in and there was no consoling him…not the pacifier, not the bottle, not holding him, not rocking him…NOTHING.

After hours of trying to get him to calm down (and at my wits end) I put him in the bed with me (I know, I know…bad mommy) and I watched him as he FINALLY fell asleep.

By this time it was after 6 a.m. and I never did fall asleep…I just watched him for 2 ½ hours until he woke up.

After waking, he took a tiny bit (and I mean a tiny bit) of bottle and I checked his temp.

It was up, meds were once again administered like I had been doing around the clock since the early evening the night before and so it went for most of the day until about 4:30 p.m. when I checked his temperature and the thermo scan read 102.9 and was glowing red (seriously, it was).

What was happening is that the Tylenol/Motrin would get his fever to come down some, but once it wore off, his temp would shoot right back up again.

Given the fact that he just had ear tubes put in a week ago, I started to worry that maybe there was some sort of secondary infection going on and that’s why his temperature was so high. Then, the coughing kicked in…big time.

Yep, something was definitely going on and it was past time for us to get him to a doctor.

Since the pediatrician’s office was closed (being that it was a weekend), our next option was a local Prime Med (a.k.a. doc in a box).

Guess what?

Doc in the box closes early on the weekends…go figure?!

So off to the local Emergency Room we went.

Thankfully, R.J. was already off spending the night with my Mom & Dad so we didn’t have to worry about entertaining an 8 year old AND an infant as we waited in an E.R.

Good thing.

I looked, it was 7:24 p.m. when we pulled into the hospital parking lot.

When we got inside I noticed that the lobby didn’t look too bad. There were about three people/families ahead of us and so I thought, “Hmmmm, we may be able to get in and out relatively quick?!”

Silly Tracey, those thoughts are for kids!

What we couldn’t see was how packed the place was in the back…where the actual examination rooms were.

And so, we waited…

and waited…

and waited some more.

We waited while a family of five (smelling like old, musty cigarette smoke) walked in.

The daddy, looked like Vanilla Ice back in his

“Ice, Ice, Baby”days.

There he was - - droopy pants, baseball cap on sideways, tattooed arms you know, the whole nine yards and I watch as he proceeded to lead his clan over to the seats that were caddy corner to us.

Of course he headed our way, I mean why would he want to choose the row of chairs across the room from us when he was able to be within inches of our noses so we could breathe in that lovely smell of (I had three cigarettes in the car with the windows closed on my way over here) smoke?!

Once he sat down, we noticed that he was holding the right side of his face and kept mumbling something to his blonde headed, similarly tattooed, toe ringed, flip-flopped wife.

Honestly, he sounded like Marlon Brando in The Godfather.

But hey, obviously she was able to understand him clearly because this is what we heard her say to him.

“HELL, no, they ain’t gonna give you a pain pill perscription…you know you cain’t have none of that. They’re probly gonna give you a coupla needles in your face to numb it up and then we’ll haveta find a DAMN dentist to carry you to on Monday.”

So here we are sitting next to a pain pill popper man with lockjaw!

On a positive note though. The three young children that were with this couple were precious, very well-behaved and seemed genuinely concerned about the well-being of their daddy.

I did however, seriously worry about the future of their lungs being that they were surrounded by all that second hand smoke.

Okay, next in, a lady sporting half fuzzy, half where-fuzz-used-to-be leopard slippers, wearing denim jeggings (with ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT to be wearing such) who shuffled on up to the computer check-in screen (which by the way, we had clear view of…so much for HIPPA and privacy, huh?) and proceeded to type in as REASON FOR VISIT: “I brokeyed my toes.”

Evidently lady, your toes aren’t that brokeyed because you were able to pour yourself into those jeggings, slip on your funky slippers and drive yourself over here to the E.R.

Could this night get any more interesting????!!!!

And, just as I am thinking this, the E.R. rent-a-cop swoops past us and gets a nurse to bring a wheelchair to the entrance of the lobby.

We hear a lot of commotion and the next thing we know, they are wheeling this guy in with a neck brace on and his legs all crumply looking.

They push him straight on through to the back and as he is whizzed by, the alcohol smell is so strong that if you lit a match near him he’d go up in flames.

Not following too far behind him are two women, one perhaps is this guy’s mother, the other his girlfriend/wife, and a guy who was without a doubt his drinking buddy.

Once they hit the double doors to the back, the rent-a-cop informs them they are not allowed to go back there yet, only drunken wheelchair man can.

As we are sitting there, we find out that drunken wheelchair man drove into a ditch.

At this point, we can only assume that the car was left in the ditch and drunken wheelchair man’s posse’ drove him to the E.R. to get checked out.

After about 20 minutes, we see wheelchair man WITHOUT the wheelchair and neck brace, come through the double doors and wobble through the lobby headed towards the front entrance.

All the while, his posse’ is looking at him totally dumbfounded not really knowing what to do until drunken wheelchair man snaps, “C’mon, we ain’t staying here…they’re gittin’ ready to call the po-lice on me. F*%# that! Y’all coming with me or not?”

With that, the posse' and drunken wheelchair man exit through the sliding glass entrance doors into the dark of night.

After which, we are told that drunken wheelchair man got BEHIND THE WHEEL of the car and drove off.

Upon learning that, I said a silent prayer and asked the Lord to especially protect others on the road hoping that no one came in contact with drunken wheelchair man who was now commandeering yet another vehicle.

When I asked the staff why he was allowed to leave, they said they didn't have the right to keep him there.

WHAT?!!!

[INSERT HERE: I could go on and on and on about what I think of this, but it would take up another whole blog post!]

Anyway, then, in comes Mrs. Veda Sheppard (again, so much for privacy) who is suffering from severe abdominal pain.

Because she is unable to stand upright, they place her in a wheelchair that is stopped right next to my husband who is holding Colton on his lap.

For the next few minutes, we get to hear various sounds of grunting pain as I ease Colton off of Michael’s lap and put him on mine further away from the Veda Sheppard Stomach Symphony in D Minor.

Mind you now, all the while, Colton is as sweet and calm as could be, just looking around and taking it all in.

Thankfully, due to his age he was oblivious to the absurdity of it all.

WHAT?

Was that my child’s name you just called??

Yes!

Thank the Lord!

We explain to the nurse what has been transpiring with Colton for the past 24 to 48 hours and we are told that we did right by bringing him in and they would do a few tests to see what was causing the persistent high fever and by now, a very croupy sounding cough.

Remember now, we have a 9 month old (soon-to-be 10 month old) infant who was running fever and not feeling well.

We had already been sitting in the lobby waiting area for over 3 ½ hours.

Surely, they could speed the process up.

W-R-O-N-G!

After Colton's ears are checked, his finger pricked for a CBC (complete blood count), a nasal swipe and throat swab to check for flu and strep, we waited...

and waited...

and waited some more.

For what seemed like an eternity, there Michael and I were peering out the small window on the examination room door looking for signs of a doctor or nurse headed our way with some information.

I told my husband that I felt like we were prisoners in a jail cell glancing through steel bars as everyone else walked past.

Just as Colton fell asleep on the table (at this point from pure exhaustion), in strolled an x-ray tech with a portable machine to get a chest x-ray.

After another 3 ½ hours (yes, you read that right), the doctor comes in and tells us that Colton’s ears look fine, the strep and flu test came back negative, but his white blood cell count was a little elevated and looking at the x-ray, it is determined that he has some slight pneumonia in his right lung.

He orders an injection of Rocephin and Zithromax oral antibiotic for us to give at home for 6 days.

Back to the Rocephin injection…have you ever seen or had a Rocephin injection???

Speaking of which, in walks the nurse with the longest needle I have ever seen and I ask him, “Is that the shot you are going to give my baby?”

He apologizes and says, “Yes, M’am and I won’t lie to you, it’s got to go into his leg muscle and it’s going to hurt, but I did add some lidocaine to help ease the burn of the

medicine a bit.”

Gee, thanks for explaining that nurse, but excuse me while I leave my baby with my husband for the shot administration.

I’m going to ease out the door temporarily because just the thought of that needle being injected into my son makes me gag and I feel like I’m going to throw up.

S-C-R-E-A-M!!!! (Colton's, not mine)

That’s when I dash back into the room and scoop my baby up to calm him down…which I might add did not happen quickly.

We are told we have to wait at least 20 minutes to see if the baby has a reaction to the shot.

Twenty-minutes?

Heck, what’s another 20 minutes when we’ve already been here long enough to welcome in Sunday.

Guess who had a reaction to the shot?

Poor little man…his thigh turned red, raised and hot within a matter of minutes.

A 5 mL dose of Benadryl and 20 more minutes and we are F-I-N-A-L-L-Y discharged with prescription in hand.

We pull out of the parking lot and onto the main drag headed to the only 24-hour pharmacy that conveniently is located right around the corner from the hospital.

Guess what?

The entire side of the street that the pharmacy is located on is blacked out and there are 4 police cars with flashing lights in the intersection.

We head home knowing we’ll just have to get the prescription filled later that day.

As we pull the car into our driveway, the clock reads 2:24 a.m.

We have been at the Emergency Room for 7 hours!!!

Colton is asleep and by the grace of God does not wake up when we place him in the crib.

My poor hubby (who at this point wishes he too could crawl up asleep in that crib) had to report to his reserve unit for military drill by 7:00 a.m.

Needless to say, neither he, nor I got much sleep.

Michael tells me he will drop off the prescription at the drug store on his way to the military base that morning.

When I call Walgreen's later that morning to find out if Colton’s prescription is ready to be picked up, the pharmacist tells me to hold on while she checks.

She goes onto say that the computers were running slow because there was a three-car accident that happened at about midnight the night before that took out a power pole.

O-M-G!

My mind flashes back to drunken wheelchair man from the emergency room and I just swallow hard and questioningly say to her, “I hope that no one was seriously injured or killed?”

She says she doesn’t know, but she hopes the same too.

“Yes, Colton’s prescription is ready.”

“Thank-you,” I reply.

As I hung up the phone, I concluded that long waits in emergency rooms we can deal with, painful needles we can deal with, fevers we can deal with, occasional sickness we can deal with…not being alive and together as a family because of some tragic event…THAT I don’t ever want to have to deal with.

By the way, after a full day at home on Sunday, a day off from daycare spent with Mimi and Boppa (my mom and dad) taking care of and cuddling him, and 3 days of oral antibiotics...Colton is feeling much, much better!

And he should...after all, he turns 10 months old today!!