I hate emergency rooms!

Saturday, Little Man wakes up with what feels like a fever. Unfortunately, we have a piece of crap ear thermometer. I thought it was cool when I purchased it because you could theoretically just point it at something and get an "accurate" temperature. Whatever. Every time I check Little Man's temp it says it's normal, but mother's intuition says otherwise.

We were able to make it through the morning routine miraculously because all Little Man wanted to do was walk around with mom with his head attached to my shoulder. He slept until 3:30pm for his nap, which really isn't all that unusual. When he wakes up though, he's not into eating for himself. I would hand him a yogurt covered pretzel and he would turn around and feed it to dad. Although dad was extremely appreciative, I was concerned that he was only wanting to drink juice or milk.

By this time, he felt even more warm to my touch. I called my mom and asked when I should begin acting worried. I double checked his temperature with a regular digital thermometer under his arm and it registered 101 degrees. I knew I really should be taking a rectal temperature, but I was not into torturing my child at that point. I had already given him 1/2 dose of Tylenol 30 minutes prior, so mom recommended to give him the other half of dose.

When I did, he started choking and eventually threw up ALL of his lunch (5 hours later) and anything else that happened to be in his stomach. I yelled down to hubby to say it was time to go to the emergency room.

Now, I know I'm probably throwing this way out of proportion, but I had this aching feeling something else was going on. First we had the problem with the UFR (Unidentifiable Freaking Rash), which we are still trying to get an referral appointment with a dermatologist. Lately it's been a horribly runny nose which I associated with his first molars emerging. I just felt like this could not wait until Monday morning.

When we get to DeWitt Hospital, I inform them of his symptoms (temperature, vomiting, not eating or drinking since noon - past 6 hours). Apparently, these symptoms were not urgent enough to the triage nurse because it was close to 2 hours later that we finally were called back to get his vitals. When she registered a temperature of 103 degrees, I about hit the roof! So, not only has my child not eaten or drank anything for now 8 hours, he has a fever. Can you say dehydrated??

I paced and paced over the next hour and half. We tried to get him to take some liquid Motrin, but that just upset him even more, so we had to give him a suppository of Tylenol to help break the fever. Thankfully, it worked and by the time we made it back to the emergency room, his temperature registered 100.4 degrees. So three hours after we first arrived, now we have to wait to be seen by a doctor.

I told hubby that I was giving them until 10pm to get a doctor or we were going home. Thankfully, Little Man was totally content to play with daddy's wedding ring, his phone, take tissue out of the box and watch it float to the floor. However, we're now 2 hours past his bedtime and he's starting to get cranky.

10pm comes and I address the nurse's station. "My son's temperature is down. He's no longer a priority to you anymore. Can we just go home?" Thankfully, one of the nurse's asked if he's been able to hold anything down. No one had offered him anything, we forgot his sippy cup at home and didn't have one in his emergency diaper bag in the truck (one will be going there now), and now he's just plain tired.

So they got him some Pedialyte and a popsicle to try and he didn't want anything to do with it. Apparently, now he's an urgent patient (not ingested anything in 10 hours!) and around the corner finally comes a doctor. Wouldn't you know it, one look in his ears and he had an ear infection. (rolling my eyes)

However, the doctor is extremely concerned that he's getting dehydrated (no duh!) so now comes the fun part. He's also concerned about RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) and making sure there is no other underlying problem going on. Since he's not eating or drinking on his own, the fun part is an IV in his arm. I'm so sorry buddy.

The rest of the night is kind of a blur, but about midnight I'm about to pass out from lack of nourishment myself. Hubby visited the trusty venting machine and comes back with Cheetos. Little Man's favorite! At first he wasn't interested - said no to daddy when he asked if he wanted a Cheeto and pushed his hand away. But when he got a taste of the cheese, it was all up hill from there.

By the end of the night, he was finally sleeping (until of course they removed his IV and urine bag around his pee-pee (ouch!)) and we were heading home at 1:30am. I never want to do that again! I feel so sorry for parents who have children with repetitive ear infections (as a matter of fact, there was a mother there who knew her child had an ear infection and waited 2 hours without being seen by the triage nurse. She ended up going home and said she would be back tomorrow if it was worse). I feel even worse for parents who have to experience their children being hospitalized for any other reason at all. I consider myself to be a strong person (I listened to my child scream when they checked his temp rectally, tried to give him medicine orally when he couldn't breathe through any other opening than his mouth, and give him an IV and pump his arm to get one last drop of blood for a CBC), but I don't think I could handle my child being hospitalized for a serious illness.

Long story not short, he's doing better today. Although I'm trying to figure out how to not torture my child while giving his medicine (he didn't fall for it in his milk - in fact that made him even more upset last night). I'm going to try putting the grape flavored antibiotics since it's only 2ml in some yogurt. If he needs Motrin or Tylenol (5ml), I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Up until now, he had always just opened his mouth and seemed to like the taste of it. Not anymore.

On a good note: Stay tuned for tomorrow. We finished our bathroom project! Until then, tootles!