My oldest son is six and a half years old. Since he's a typical boy (part superhero, part wild child, and part animal), you'd think that the Baarts would be old pros at the ER thing. Never mind the fact that our second son is the three and a half year old equivalent of Evil Knievel. Between the two of them and the years we've been parenting, we should have accumulated a long list of hospital visits, broken bones, and stitches. But we haven't. In fact, far from it.
We've never been to the ER. Our sons were not sick once this year. Yup, you read that right: not once. No colds, flus, or sinus infections. No broken arms, accidents, or bumps on the head. In fact, as far as we know our youngest has never once had a fever. Amazing, isn't it?
Well, you knew it was only a matter of time... Our baby got stitches last night. Three of them on his brow bone. The worst part? It was my fault.
In the ER last night:
Doctor: What happened, Buddy?
My Son: I wan into da banis-tuh.
Doctor: The banister?
My Son: Uh-huh.
Doctor: Why did you run into the banister?
My Son: Because my mommy said I had to go upstairs and pick up my toys. I didn't want to, but she made me.
Oh! The mommy-guilt! I'm tempted to never make him pick up his toys again. But then again, he's pretty proud of his Frankenstien stripes. Scars are cool, right? I'm just hoping that this one trip was an anomaly... Please, Lord, let this not be a growing trend in the Baart house.
Your turn: Tell me about your best ER visit! I got stitches when I was three, and apparently my dad almost passed out in the procedure room. The doctor made him go sit outside. :)
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Oh gah, I went to the ER when I was, I think six, with a bad stomach virus. My parents said they thought the guy drawing my blood was maybe an intern and he couldn't find my vein, and he just keeps poking me and poking me (not very gently, might I add), and I'm kicking and screaming and crying because it hurts so bad. I remember all of that, but I don't remember the pain, I just know that it hurt really bad. Well, the guy left and in came an older, more experienced lady who drew my blood just fine. And that's about the only ER experience I remember. We went in the middle of the night, and I was moaning and groaning in the back seat from stomach pains. They thought I might've had the Rhoda virus, but I didn't.
ReplyDeleteThey should never, ever let interns work on little kids! Though I am glad you didn't have Rota Virus... my youngest son got it shortly after we brought him home from Ethiopia. I finally called my mom at 8:00 one morning, sobbing my eyes out because in the half hour since he had woken up he had thrown up three times and had seven dirty diapers. It was awful!
ReplyDeleteMy ER experiences are endless, however the worst ones have been with my children. The worst one by far was at 2:30 a.m. (in a country other than my citizenship), my daughter was struggling for every breath and blue in the face and my husband and I pleaded with the nurses and doctors on staff to please help her ASAP, needless to say they did nothing and we finally found a doctor who saw the urgency in the matter and she was airlifted immediately! The funniest one was with my injured hockey player hubby (who might I add is Canadian ;))...He had a bruised rib and needed a lot of medication to calm down;)It was quite something to experience...I think he was actually more panicked than pain ridden.
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm sure, with my wild-child (he's a CLIMBER!) I'll be in the ER eventually. The boy has zero fear. He climbs on really tall things and smiles like the proudest little year and a half year old I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteMy trip to the ER involved teeth in the back of my mouth and an actualy hole straight throgh my lip. I got shot in the mouth by a golf ball. One shot of morphine in the butt, 40 stitches, and one wired jaw later....and I was all better!
My daughter (who was four years old at the time) woke us up at 2 a.m. screaming and doubled over with stomach pain. After giving her some anti-gas medication and trying to encourage several trips to the bathroom, she still wasn't feeling any better. So we rushed her off to the ER at a little after 3 a.m. It took us about 20 minutes to get there, and then we sat in the waiting room for another half hour. She was screaming, crying and curling into a ball the entire time. The nurses thought it could possibly be her appendix or gaul bladder. Then, as the doctor was examining her he pressed gently on the center of her abdomen and out it came. The loudest, most obnoxious passing of gas I'd ever witnessed from one that small. She then giggled at the doctor and said, "I feel much better now."
ReplyDeleteMy almost five year old has had at least 12 ER visits, rotavirus, stitches (hitting her head on a retaining wall while biking at "grandma's house and getting seven stitches from her ear canal to the outside edge of her ear) and many, many, many UTI's. Last summer we made three trips in 24 hours, on the second trip, the nurse walked in, my daughter looked at her and said, "My butt's a SAD face!" It was so funny because she was well aware of the pain scale. She was screaming bloody murder and was obviously having bladder spasms to go with her chunky green urine. The doctor decided to give her an enema to help relieve some of the pressure against her bladder. When the nurse was done (after many more tears) she looked at the nurse and said, "My butt's a happy face now." Out of the mouths of babes!
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