We’ve had quite the excitement in our house over the last month, and not the good kind. Both kids have been sick and we have taken 2 separate trips to the emergency room. When it rains, it pours.

Reed:
A few weeks ago, I was building the race track for Reed’s 2nd Birthday party. I used some particle board that I had leftover from another project. One evening I was working in the garage with Reed out there with me, along with Julie. As I was picking up the large piece of particle board to position it on the saw horses, I didn’t see Reed behind me to my left. The board swung up and the corner caught him in the corner of his right eye, next to the bridge of his nose. He dropped to the ground holding his face as Julie and I both were realizing what had just happened.

There was no significant blood, but his eyelid and area around his eye were certainly swelling. Julie called her mother for an assessment and she came right over… emergency room it is.

The waiting room of Methodist Children’s hospital was PACKED. It was the height of flu season and RSV. Fortunately for us, Reed’s case was escalated pretty quick because of his age and it was his eye. Once we finally got to a doctor, we had to hold Reed down for an iodine test. Sure enough, he had a scratch across his eye, but not alarming.

We had to treat Reed’s eye with drops for the next few days (which he hated), but by the time his birthday came, he was looking much better.

About a week after his birthday, Reed came down with a HORRIBLE stomach bug. He had spent the day with Duke and then had a pasta dinner with Ya-Ya, so nothing unusual. At about 1am, he cried out from his room after throwing up all over his crib. Julie cleaned him up and put him back down. He has done this once before and it was a one-and-done case. Two hours later he woke up again after another spell. Then thirty minutes later, a third time.

I gave him a bath this time to both settle him down (throwing up scared him) and clean him up. He didn’t feel hot, but he certainly had that pitiful look of helplessness that he usually has when he is sick. (Julie says it is the only time he will sit still and cuddle.) At this point we realized that this wasn’t going away, and we would just be changing sheets in his crib until we ran out if we kept trying to put him down. So, I stayed up with Reed and we watched Cars and Charlie Brown.

The short version of the LONG day that ensued was that Reed could not keep anything down (not even water) for about 15 hours. We had to slow-feed him a tablespoon of water every 10 minutes after he had not thrown up for two hours. He hated the idea of one tiny sip of water after we started to give it to him, and proceeded to call out for more water as a dehydrated traveler in the Sahara Desert. It was really hard that he could not understand us holding back the one thing we offer him freely on a regular basis. The entire day felt like a sick day for the family since we never once stepped foot outside and the line between night and day was so blurry.

It turned out to be viral, and it ran it’s course through fever eventually. Julie kept him home that Monday… unfortunately in the same proximity as 2 month old Alison.

Alison:
Whatever Reed had the week before, we are pretty sure that Ali got some of the residual effects. We tried fervently to wash our hands as we dealt with Reed and then had to tend to Ali. Unfortunately the close proximity to such sickness we are pretty sure gave Alison her first significant fever and a trip to… you guessed it… the emergency room.

We were fortunate in this situation that Julie’s mother was already over at the house for a visit. She was just about to say goodbye after Julie changed Ali’s diaper. They thought she felt a little hot, so during the diaper change, they checked her temp. Julie said she checked it 3 times… 101! For her age it means a trip to the hospital to rule out things like meningitis. Since Julie’s mom was already at the house, she was kind enough to stay with Reed, who we had already put down to bed for the night.

Once again to Methodist Children’s, and once again we jumped to the top of the waiting list because of the urgency and implications and her age. In fact Julie never sat down in the waiting room. She was already admitted by the time I parked the car and walked in. They gave Ali a dose of Tylenol after taking her temp and they moved us to a room in the ER.

We settled in for what was going to be a long night. In order to test for stuff like meningitis and other reasons for high fever on an infant, they have to run all sorts of tests. Urine sample, blood sample, chest x-rays… you name it. What ensued was the hardest time I have ever had as a parent, to date. The details of the story actually make me angry when I think about them again, so I will not dwell too much on them.

It was becoming apparent to me that before they started these tests we had created quite a buzz in the halls by having a 2 month old there in the ER to undergo all these tests. As our nurses we prepping for the procedures, there were a number of nurses and doctors that stuck their head into our room to catch a glimpse of our daughter, and offer assistance if there wasn’t already enough help. We were certainly a much more interesting case than the middle school kid next door that had violent puking spells every 20 minutes (or so it sounded like).

The urine sample was first. One of the nurses assigned to us was actually a shadow of the other. She came from the adult ER, and was getting her round in pediatrics. They were going to do a catheter on Ali to get the urine sample. I had prepared myself for the crying and discomfort that Ali would have while they were doing the procedure, but I was not prepared for the length of time it would take and the fact that the shadow could not correctly do the procedure. In the midst of my daughter’s pain and agony, these nurses were having a “teaching moment”. Finally the rookie stepped aside and the other nurse finished. It felt like a lifetime to hear Ali cry like that. Julie was tearing up, as was I. We heard Ali make sounds that we had never heard before. My fingers were digging into my arms as I had them crossed and bound as tight as I could. I couldn’t watch and I couldn’t walk away.

That was only the beginning, the blood test was next. Between 4 different nurses they had to stick Ali 6 different times to attempt to draw blood and give her an IV. They even sent the “A” team of nurses to draw blood from her tiny veins. Julie lost it when she heard that one had “blown a vein” during an attempt. They eventually just stuck her foot as they do for the PKU to draw blood and passed on the IV.

The chest x-ray was certainly the easiest. We just had to hold her still on the table. We did pass by the same room that Reed had been in for the iodine test on his eye just a few week before. They also did a nasal flush that really cleaned out the junk that Ali had been coughing on for quite a while.

We left the hospital at about 2am. Ali slept through the rest of the night, and I am sure it was pure exhaustion, as well as the nasal flush that helped her breathe easier.

We thought we had an early introduction to doctors with Reed when he needed stitches. He was eighteen months old when that happened. Ali beat her older brother by 16 months.

RB