Our Very First Visit to the Emergency Room

I'm one of those people that has knock-down drag-out internal debates about the true essence of "emergency" when considering a visit to the emergency room or calling 911. Calling the doctor during office hours makes me feel like a whiny pain in the ass. However, when The Hellkat's first real illness presented itself with a 105 degree fever and projectile vomiting it all went out the window.

H. was a little cranky at bedtime last night and didn't seem to have much of an appetite. It was M.'s night to take care of the kid and he's always really sweet about trying to get her back to sleep without waking me but last night he came in and apologetically asked me to check her temp because she felt warm. Her temp was 103.5 so I nursed her and we gave her some Tylenol and put her back to bed. When she woke up again at 6:30, her fever had spiked to 104.8. Between calls to the pediatrician's answering service (they didn't call back for over an hour) H. became more and more listless and when we tried to give her another dose of Tylenol, she vomited all over me multiple times in quick suggestion. When M. suggested taking her to the emergency room, I didn't think twice.

When we arrived at 8:00ish, we were pleased to find no line and an empty pediatric emergency room. They took some vitals, gave her some Motrin and ordered a chest x-ray, which all happened pretty quickly and efficiently. Then they decided to take blood and urine samples and everything went down the crapper. They stuck this bag to her crotch to collect pee and prepped her to take some blood from vein in her arm. The first two attempts at taking blood failed so the doctor said he'd try taking it from an artery and we waited for another doctor who would assist him. Two more sticks and the attending shows up to give it a try. At that point I got pretty pissed and told them to stop. They had been pinning down and poking The Hellkat for almost 45 minutes. Then they came back and say they really need the blood sample and because the bag wasn't working, they needed to take a urine sample using a catheter. Ugh! So we cause a stink and call our pediatrician and speak to the Chief Something-or-other they called in to get us from causing an even bigger stink and decide to let them go ahead. The catheter was another disaster but they got "enough" after about 20 minutes of poking and prodding. Then we wait about an hour to get the Chief Something-or-other to come down and draw the blood personally. About the same time she arrives, we are told that they didn't get enough urine and they need to stick another bag on our poor girl's crotch. Argh! Luckily, the chief knew what she was doing and got the blood. Then it was another hour waiting for test results and another hour waiting for an antibiotic shot and then an hour waiting for the kid to pee, get test results, and get discharge papers.

All the while, we've got a sad, abused, chilly, sick baby in our arms wondering why the fuck we'd come to the hospital when we could be at home making her feel better instead of worse. Of course, after 9 hours we have no diagnosis and got antibiotics anyway. I'm sorry, Hellkat.