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That One Time We Went to Children's

Thursday, February 17, 2011

It's been no secret that we've had a sick little one for a while. Well, yesterday, everything came to a head. We'd gotten to that not-so-great point of parenting inadequacy where we knew we would have to call for reinforcements.


Just after midnight, we loaded up and headed out to the ER. First of all, I have to say just how impressed I was with their ENTIRE staff. They were happy, patient, informative, and helpful. They TOTALLY explained what they were doing, why they were doing it, and what we could expect.

Anyway, we arrived, gave our information to the registrar and sat down. After 20 minutes, they put us in Triage.
Here we are in triage giving details while the nurse collected vitals. Mari had no problem taking her Tylenol or wearing the oxygen monitor they put on her thumb. She just sat with her daddy, feeling lethargic, and far from her usual self. I was entertaining myself with the silliness of Wizards of Waverly Place when all of a sudden, a very upset mother stormed out with her daughter while her husband followed behind. She hollered about it taking over an hour waiting for a doctor and blah, blah, blah. I don't know why she was surprised with the wait. I've been to two other hospitals in the area to wait for their ER and a couple of visits to CareNow, neither of which was less than an hour and a half wait. Anyway, since that family left, I figured we would get in the patient room much faster. We waited another 15 minutes when they called us back to the room to wait.

After another 30 minutes of waiting in the room, the nurse came in and took her vitals. It was that waiting time that I was able to catch a 15 minute cat nap with Mari on the tiny bed. When she was gone, I got up and was alert again for the duration of the night until we got home. About 20 minutes after that, the doctor came in to see us. She was kind, patient, and listened without rushing. She had great bedside manner. She listened to her chest and wanted to give her a breathing treatment. She also ordered an x-ray. The Respiratory Therapist came in and gave her a dose of Albuterol.
This was her first time to wear a mask. We called her Mari Vader. She seemed somewhat comforted by that. Shortly thereafter, she took a power nap before they took her away to get her x-ray. She came back upset and I wasn't sure what happened while they were gone. Being beyond pregnant, they would not let me go back there with her. Don relayed to me that she was not happy to do it. It was a bit after this that our friend came over to keep us company.

It didn't seem like it was that long before our doctor came back in to listen to Mari's chest. She returned with good news that Mari did not have pneumonia! Because she was coughing so much still, she wanted to do another breathing treatment and give her a few drops of codeine to help her get some good sleep. She had another treatment and was not very happy about it. She took the codeine and less than 10 minutes later, she had a coughing fit that caused her to not only get rid of some phlegm, but most of the codeine she'd taken. Instead of giving her more, we were content with the results from the breathing treatment. The coughing had subsided tremendously and her fever was now down to 99.

Just before 5AM, we were discharged with two new medications and a much brighter outlook. My head bobbed on the way home and I have no idea how my husband made it through an entire day with about an hour of sleep. Kudos to him, indeed.

I would highly recommend Children's for your emergencies for your children. I'm sure many of you readers have already discovered them and their awesome care, but if you haven't and you find yourself in need of medical attention for your small person, then check 'em out.

1 comment:

Kristen, pajama mama said...

I'm sorry Mari is feeling so icky. Hope those meds are kicking in by now.

I was also super impressed with Children's when I had to take Sorette in for tons of testing after we brought her home...from escorts to the right room to sugar water to distract from needles...they were as helpful as i think a hospital can be.

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