Emergency Pediatrics Care

Today, at 10 months, we had our first emergency room visit.  I guess that it's a small blessing that we've made it to this point without having had a prior visit.  It did not make it less scary, though.

 On a "typical" Saturday morning, Carter will begin to chat to herself and her toys around 6:30am, and will eventually give us a holler around 7:15am.  Andy and I will go and get her, and she'll smile at us, sit up, crawl to the bars of the crib and climb up to see us.  We change her while she hoots, jibber-jabbers, and chatters, and squirms, and then we eat breakfast.

Today, Andy went to get her, and she didn't make any attempt to move towards him.  He squatted next the crib to get to eye level with her, and she just laid there.  Her breathing was odd: like she was holding her breath, letting out a pant, then holding again.  And when she did breath normally, it was very loud and very fast.  Her eyes were gunky and her nose was runny and crusty, and she was on fire.  We took her temperature and it registered 100.5, 101.2, 101.1, all high for her.  She cuddled and held on to which ever one of us held her, and this is her "high activity time," and we knew she wasn't right.

She continued to have odd breathing patterns and was burning up, so we packed up and headed to Blank's Children's Hospital emergeny room in Des Moines.  She cried on the way there, but would try and smile for me.  It was heartbreaking.

 They checked her in, checked her weight and normal body things.  The doctor dug two huge, disgusting balls of wax out of both ears (PU-KE!), and checked her ears and throat, which were both okay.  During all of this, she did great.  She nearly fell asleep during her wax excavation, and cried just because she was uncomfortable.  The nurse gave her some motrine (orange, yum!) and then we took a couple x-rays of her chest.  She wasn't happy about it, but did okay.

After our worrying and all the checking, she appears to be just running a fever.  She gets baby motrine and liquids until she's back to normal.  Andy and I discussed our thoughs on the emergency room: I would rather them roll their eyes at me, send me with some motrine, and think that I'm overprotective than to sit at home and let her get over it on her own.  I have 0 medical knowledge, except what I've gleaned from ER which is very little, and I would rather be "safe than sorry."  Having to live with myself after we'd sat at home, letting her be sick and upset, would kill us.  I will go into the ER a hundred times over if that's what I think is necessary for Carter to be healthy.  I can safely say that I don't feel we're "overprotective" because I can balance this with the "freedom" she has: she goes with us everywhere, restaurants, friends, shopping, the only rules of the house are ones to proect her: no knives and don't eat the ants.  Carter has the freedom to do nearly anything her creative mind and think of, and as parents, it's our job to make sure her "creative mind" stays healthy and happy.  So, by the time she's 18, there'll probably be a worn and beaten path between us and the hospital.  And we're okay with that.