Seriously.
It was not even a week ago that I was in the Urgent Care getting treatment for strep throat. Luckily, both my kids avoided getting it from me. I should have knocked wood 100 times for that gift from heaven.
But I did not and yesterday, I was punished for my insolence.
Actually, Elizabeth was punished.
It was about 11 am yesterday morning. Dylan was napping, Bob was getting ready to lay the tile floor in the guest bathroom, I was making a baby blanket for a friend, Elizabeth was running around like a monkey on crack, you know, a regular Sunday morning.
All of a sudden Elizabeth stops twirling or whatever and says, "I need to go to the big girl potty!"
"Go!" I said, very excited because for whatever reason she's been relapsing on the potty training.
Elizabeth took off through the house, ran by Bob yelling "I neeeeed to go to the big girl pottyyyyyyyy"
She ran through our room, into the master bathroom, then....
WHAM!!!
Then very loud and serious crying.
Bob, being closer, ran in there and scooped up the girl.
She was hysterical. Bob asked to see her owie.
She showed him her rapidly expanding and ever darkening into a lovely shade of purple eye.
There was blood everywhere.
Bob panicked and called for backup (aka me)
I put her into the car and took off for the emergency room.
We got there at 11:30 am and started waiting...
FIVE HOURS LATER...
Four nurses (or rather, one PA, a nurse, a nurse assistant and a trainee) came into the treatment room (we FINALLY got back into the actual ER at around 3:30 pm) and proceeded to restrain my child, had me cover her face with a napkin, then shot her face up with the biggest needle I have ever seen before. Once the gash in her face was numb, the PA cleaned the wound. They were preparing to put in stitches when the PA told us that the cut wasn't really a cut, it was an "abrasion" that just LOOKED like a cut because of the caked on blood and the folds in the corner of Elizabeth's eye. No cut, no stitches.
They released us 10 minutes later with a prescription for antibiotic ointment and some stickers.
ARGH!
Seriously.
Now Elizabeth looks like Rocky with her big shiner. See for yourself. The eye on your right is the actual damaged side, the other one we did up with makeup to make them match.
UPDATE***
Here's a picture from this morning, a better angle, better view of the swellin'. She's so not gellin'.
7 comments:
That's exactly what I thought too.
Stupid idiots.
And don't get me wrong, I love old people and children, but come on.
They were wheeling in some of the OLDEST people I have ever seen in my life into the ER waiting room. I mean, like 100 years old. No lie. I was thinking, why prolong this? The poor men were sitting there like vegetables in their wheelchairs, probably didn't even know where they were. Sorry, but it's true. I do NOT want that for my life, at all. If I can't wipe my own butt, I'm checking out. Plain and simple.
And there were TWO families who found it necessary to take the trip to the ER for one child with the WHOLE family in tow. There was a family of six AND a family of seven, both there for ONE sick kid, and neither one of the kids seemed all that sick to me, and I'm totally a licensed mom/doc. That's 13 people there when it could have been four. That's a freaking lot of extra people. And they were all crazy running around kids.
One kid, I overheard, was at the ER because he had diarrhea. WHAT? Only if the kid is also vomiting is that even remotely an emergency. This kid was not vomiting. He was just whining. In fact, he never even got a diaper change in the four hours I was there, sooo... It couldn't have been that bad, that's all I'm saying. Just give the kid some Pedialyte and wait it out. Geez!
No wonder it took us FIVE hours. In retrospect, WE shouldn't even have been there, since she didn't need stitches after all.
Gaw!
It is true, people up here use the ER as a doctor's office too. It really ticks off the nurses.
But what I don't understand is WHY would you go to the ER with just a little fever, or diarrhea? It's such a friggin pain in the ass to go through the ER. I'd rather die.
It's true everywhere. I am curious about your triage though. Hello... isn't that what they are there for? To see if it's an abrasion or a laceration or a cold sore or whatever? If it makes you feel any better, Athena was cut for four hours before they stitched her up. And they DID stitch her up. Truth be told, after four hours, I was questioning if stitches were really necessary. I mean, if she hasn't died by now...
You know, the WHOLE way to the ER I was thinking to myself that I should NOT have jinxed my child's wellbeing when I posted the following on Chris's post about Athena's stitches:
"As a testament to my hyperactive hypochondriacal parenting skills, she's never had anything actually DONE to her in the ER.
All false alarms. No major bloody incidents. THank goodness!"
For SHAME!
It could be worse. My co-worker's daughter (two years old) fell down and hit the bed frame with her face. It nearly tore half her lip off and she ended up with 21 stitches, 2 cut veins, and a plastic surgery consult. Luckily, according to her dad (an EMT), she's handling it very well and recovering nicely so far.
I don't see how you jinxed yourself. She still hasn't had anything DONE to her in the ER. Well, I guess she got the numbing shot. And she was forced to wait around forever. But at least you didn't have to go back to have the stitches taken out. :-)
Call me Patty Positive.
Dear Mrs. Positive,
I guess you're right.
Always look on the bright side, I suppose.
Sincerely,
Jinxed (or am I) in Arizona
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