From the pedi to the ER

This morning Owen went to Mom's Morning Out and Vivi stayed home since she was still feeling miserable. I called the pediatrician and got her in for a 2pm appointment while Owen was at preschool (he had back-to-back MMO/preschool today). The doctor took one look at her and said she suspected pneumonia. I didn't think so since she wasn't coughing or struggling to breathe, but the doc pointed out her rapid breaths and I immediately agreed with her. They did a neb treatment in the office and it helped her oxygen level, but since she still looked so bad and she also was pretty sure she was dehydrated, they send us right over to the ER.

I called Ben and left a message and then rushed her over to the hospital. We didn't have to wait too long before they took her back for a chest x-ray. They immediately started an IV to give her fluids and told us we'd be there overnight. Ben picked up Owen at preschool and took him over to Kelly & Matt's so he could play with Kayla until Ben got home. He brought me an overnight bag and met us in the ER triage room where we were still waiting to get moved up to the pediatric floor.

Baby girl was so weak that she barely fought at all when they did the IV, and she was out sleeping soundly for the entire ride to our room. I met our nurses and they got us settled in the room before I turned in for the night. We'd meet the doctor in the morning. The room was very nice and comfortable - that's my cot in the background. 

A night in two ER's

This afternoon while at work, I received a call from daycare saying that Owen was holding his tummy and crying and they couldn't get him to stop. My first thought was that he was constipated and was holding it in, but when I walked into his classroom at school I immediately knew something was wrong.

He was sitting down on a chair at one of the small tables with his head down on the desk. He was obviously in pain and it looked as if one of his classmates had dumped a cup of water on his head - that is how much he was sweating. When I asked him what was wrong and what was hurting him, all he could do was yell out loudly in pain. We were going straight to the ER.

On the way I called the pediatrician to let them know what was going on, and they called the ER ahead to let them know we were coming. Owen was yelling loudly the entire drive there which took about 15 minutes. We were placed in a triage room fairly quickly and I told the nurse what happened. She left to get the doctor, and as she left the room Owen laid down on the bed, shut his eyes and was silent. I was so scared. It was as if he was shutting down. I ran out of the room crying and called out for the nurse that something was really wrong. Immediately she got the doctor, and four other nurses came into the room and immediately began assessing him. They noticed right away that he was dripping with sweat from head to toe as they undressed him.

Before I knew it they had two IV's in his arm, heartrate monitors on his chest and toe, and they were inserting a tube into his nose which would go into his stomach to let some air out since he was extremely distended. He was a trooper through all of it. He wasn't putting up much of a struggle, which worried me, and he still wasn't talking which was highly unlike him. They gave him a very small dose of morphine for the pain and another med (Zophran, I think) in case the pain med made him nauseous.
They couldn't figure out what was going on, so the doctor ordered an x-ray of his belly to see if there was an obstruction. We had to wait for the radiology team to get to our room so they could do it, and in the time we were waiting the nurse put in a "Bob the Builder" DVD to entertain him. He finally began to come back - slowly started talking again and I started to feel a sense of relief.

The x-ray didn't show a whole lot and the doctor said she couldn't rule out an obstruction, so they wanted to transfer us to Fairfax Hospital since they have a more advanced pediatrics department in case he needed surgery. We then had to wait for the ambulance team to get to us and hook Owen up to be transferred. The two EMT's were really nice. One of them gave Owen a blown-up blue medical glove as a balloon to play with while they finished hooking up all his IV's and monitors to be transferred. We went "lights and sirens" as they say, which was a good thing since it was the end of rush-hour and we had to take the beltway to get to the second hospital. It was pretty cool - Owen stayed awake the entire time and felt pretty special that he got to take such a fun ride.

We got to our room at Fairfax and the nurses brought him bubbles and playdough - those were a hit. Had to wait about two hours to get an ultrasound, but Toy Story 2 was playing on the TV and Owen wasn't in pain any longer, so he was fine waiting. Aunt Hillary came to the rescue even though it was 10pm by that point. Since Ben was home with Vivian in bed, we didn't have a way to get home since my car was at the first hospital. So Hillary was so nice to come over and hang out with us until we were discharged. When he finally got the ultrasound at 10:30pm, it was pretty inconclusive. Both the tech and the doctor said they didn't see any blockages, and that it may have resolved itself while he was in the hospital.

We got home at 12:30am and went straight to bed. I was upset that after all that, we still didn't know exactly what happened, but they think it was a blockage (can't remember the medical term for it) that resolved itself. My feeling is that since he has been holding in poops for six months now, his colon is probably messed up. He has a follow-up ER visit with our pediatrican and then we're going to ask to be referred to a pediatric GI doc. We want to get to the bottom of this. (No pun intended.)

Baby's first trip to the ER

We had an eventful Saturday morning, to say the least. I woke up early to head off to a consignment sale at my church (which was awesome!). Got home around 10:30am to a happy little boy playing in the family room with his Daddy. He LOVED all the new books I found for him. We read them all a few times, and then he started climbing on the couch (his new thing these days). I had started reading a book that I had purchased for myself (What to Expect - the Toddler years), and was only keeping one eye on him versus my full attention.

That was all it took.

I was reading a sentence in the 18-month old chapter, when all of a sudden I heard Owen fall off the couch and hit his head. He immediately started wailing. I rushed over and picked him up and tried to calm him down. Then I saw the blood. Poor baby had cut his upper lip on the corner of the coffee table. Ben ran into the room and helped me to try to calm him down enough to look inside his mouth to see if his teeth were still there. (Thank God they were.) He just had hit his chin so that his bottom teeth cut into his upper lip.

We got the bleeding under control while calling the pediatrician who referred us to the Emergency Room. Ben and Owen were still in their jammies (they were having a relaxing Saturday morning), so I took Owen by myself to the hospital. In his pjs.

He had stopped crying and was doing okay on the way over, but his lip was so swollen and still bleeding a tiny bit. We had given him a dose of Motrin before leaving the house (as instructed by the pediatrician), so I was hoping that it would help with the swelling and pain. We got to the hospital within 15 minutes and I rushed him into the ER to check in.

Owen: "'Copter! 'Copter! 'Copter!" He was so happy to get to see a REAL helicopter right outside the ER entrance. It was definitely the highlight of the experience.

We waited for about 15 minutes and then finally got to see the doctor. She checked him out from head to toe and looked closely at the lip cut. She said he didn't need stitches and that since it was only on the lip and didn't extend out past the top of the lip, it would heal on its own in about 4-5 days. He needs to be on a soft food diet for the rest of today so that we don't irritate the cut, and she said it would be a good time for us to wean him off the paci cold-turkey. (I wasn't so sure about how he would feel about it, but she assured me that it wouldn't be that painful.)

We got home and had a quick lunch and then it was off to take a long nap. He went down at 1pm (without his paci) and is still sound asleep.

Stay tuned for pictures of the fat lip. (Hey, it's my job to document this stuff, right?)