Our Trip to the ER
Two weeks ago was Sydney's 2nd trip the ER.
Note: Her first trip involved doing a header out of a booth onto a tile floor in a restaurant (Leona's). That one gave her an immediate goose egg above her eye and gave her a bloody nose. This was roughly a year ago, and I don't believe we posted about it. The lesson learned there was that no matter how well behaved your child is, putting a booster seat on a soft booth outside the parent is a bad idea. Sydney leaned to the side trying to look back over her left shoulder and toppled right out.
Trip number two involved the little girl who wouldn't poop. Sydney has had constipation for as long as I can remember and is on a daily laxative. On the Friday night, Sydney hadn't really pooped in a week. She had a very small one on the preceding Tuesday but that was it. Friday she started throwing up. We initially wrote it off to a stomach bug because one was going around the day care. Saturday came and went, no poop, lots of straining, more throwing up. Sunday came, more straining, more throwing up, and we decided to address the pooping issue. Meghan called the doctor and we were told to go to the ER.
In the ER, Sydney received an enema which quickly had her in hysterics. After that there was a lot more straining, a lot of screaming. After 5 minutes of shrieking, Meghan got the nurse. The enema bottle said it would work in 5 minutes and clearly wasn't. We later found out from the doctor that medical labeling is meaningless and that it could take 40 minutes. More straining/screaming. Later they did an x-ray. Then more straining. Finally, a brick came out. Having passed the brick, she put her head in Meghan's lap, quickly slouched down to the floor, and fell asleep. She was literally sound asleep on the floor of the ER.
At this point we still hadn't heard back regarding the x-ray so we didn't know if more was coming or whether that was it. I walked out of the room, saw the doctor chatting with a nurse, commented that Sydney had passed a brick, and was now sound asleep on the floor. I didn't know if we should wake her up or not. She was breathing so I was inclined not to. The doctor asked, “Did they get her in for the x-ray yet?” This was ~40 minutes after the x-ray where the tech told us he'd get it to the doctor right away and the doctor would be back in 15 minutes. So I told him, “Yep. Long time ago.”. He brought up the x-ray on a monitor before getting side tracked with something else, and I stood there looking at it myself looking for anything one would not expect to see on an x-ray (like an Elmo figurine or something like that). Amusingly, while I was looking at it a nurse walked up and asked “Can I help you sir?” I said, “Yeah, I'm looking at my daughter's x-ray. She was constipated, and I'm trying to figure out how much more poop is going to come out or if the brick she just passed is it.” She pointed to some spots on Sydney's intestines that she said were full of air and concluded that the only mass was what had just come out.
Half an hour later or so we got a lecture about putting Sydney on a high fiber diet and were discharged. There was one more throwing up incident before bed time.
That night, Sydney and I slept on her floor in her room together. I think I went in there around midnight or so to try to get her back to sleep, she curled up on the floor, and I laid next to her. She kept begging for water telling me she was thirsty. It was heartbreaking, but I knew if I let her drink much water she's throw up again. We had tried going slow before bed only to have her douse the couch 15 minutes later.
I gave in and gave her a little water. I then took it back, told her to let it soak in, and we both laid down on the floor. We both dozed off and then she woke up about an hour or two later. I gave her more water and told her to go to sleep again.
The next time Sydney woke up, she was crazed. She wanted water, and I'm pretty sure she was prepared to beat it out of me. I have never seen her eyes or her stare so intense. I was actually a little afraid of her. I gave her more water expecting to get puked on. To my surprise she kept it down. At some point, I tagged out, went to bed, and Meghan took over. I can't speak to that part, but Sydney didn't throw up anymore.
The next day Sydney did have two massive diaper filling diarrhea poops.... so much for air in there. She was backed up all the way.
At the ER, we weren't particularly thrilled with the care we got. The nurse was kind of bitchy. The doctor didn't really answer our questions and seemed all over the place. Some of his comments sounded like he didn't recognize that we were talking about the eating habits of a toddler. Others made her sound more like a baby. Nothing pisses Meghan and I off more than asking a doctor a direct question and getting a long winded answer that doesn't answer the question. I think some of these guys are just afraid to say anything definitive for fear of getting sued if they are wrong.
I will say that we had one guy taking care of us (not sure if he was a resident or a medical student or what his actual role was but he was really good with Sydney. He got us an Elmo DVD (that Sydney ended up not wanting to watch) checked in on us a few times and took her vitals before we left. He actually took her pulse by holding on to her little wrist. I was shocked that she held still. She didn't seem to notice the tattoos on his arms, but I was waiting for the questions to start. We've told Sydney not to draw on herself enough times that I wasn't sure how I was going to answer why that guy was allowed to do it. But the question never came.
Anyway, that was our trip to the ER.