Easton's First ER Visit

On Sunday of last week, Lane's parents came up for dinner.  After they left, I note to myself that Easton just wasn't as smiley as usual.  That night, he woke up several times during the night crying - also very unusual, and he had a really low fever.  I felt like I was overreacting a little, but we rushed to the pediatrician drop in hour first thing Monday morning.  "Hi, my infant was crying during the night."

I didn't feel as silly when poor little Easton vomited bright green bile in the patient room at the dr. office. He was so irritable the entire time that the doctor advised we take him to the emergency room at Children's Hospital.  In fact, she called the attending doctor and told us they were waiting for Easton.

I made some phone calls from the dr. office, dropped Gabriela off with Heather (thank goodness fr friends in town), and headed to the ER in my baby vomit clothes. The doctor mentioned that Easton might have a urinary tract infection, so I thought the hospital would confirm, give us a prescription for meds, and we'd be on our way. No need for Lane to come, we'd probably be done before he'd get home.

After we got to a patient room the attending ER physician came in the room to have a talk with me. Based on Easton's symptoms. he could have a UTI, an abdominal obstruction, a blood infection, pneumonia, or ...  meningitis.  Yeah, you know that sickness that people die from? I know of two people who have died from meningitis, and of course this was what I immediately thought of.  The only way to know for sure, they explained, was to do a spinal tap on my sweet little boy.   They would hold off to see if his condition improved or if they identified a different problem with some other tests.  But they warned that it was possible that Easton could have, for example, a UTI and meningitis and this could not be ignored.

So off they sent Easton and his freaked out mama for an ultrasound. Since Easton was throwing up, they wanted to see if he had an intestinal blockage. If so, they would give an air enema to clear it up.  If that didn't do the trick, he would need surgery.  No reassurance here.  At least Easton loved his ultrasound. He smiled and cooed through it all.  I needed to see my happy baby back.

Of course, there was no cell phone coverage at all in the hospital and it was clear that Lane should have been there. The nurses kindly showed me to a phone ... that wouldn't dial to 408 area code. I called Lane's work and broke down when they told me he was on his way to me. Only moments later he walked through the doors, and that's when I really broke down in tears.

Next the really awful stuff happened.  Easton had a catheter inserted to test for a UTI.  His face turned bright red, his eyes bulged out and he screamed like I've never heard before in his life.  Easton was looking right into my eyes and I felt like I had betrayed him, by letting him suffer like this, unable to explain anything. Since they hadn't yet ruled out the abdominal problems, I wasn't even allowed to nurse him.  Because of this, there were only a few drops of urine to be collected, not even enough for the test.

As if this wasn't traumatic enough for our whole family, Easton needed to have blood drawn from his tiny veins for cultures.  The nurses turned the lights out completely, put a flashlight on Easton's hand and traced his veins.  Then they just poked where the drawings were. Easton thrashed around and screamed again.  I cried again.

He was about to get an IV, when they heard that not enough blood had been collected for the culture. So they drew more.  Easton reacted to his IV insertion like he did to his blood drawing.  Luckily, they were able to tape a urine collection bag to him to collect his next pee pee instead of redoing the catheter.  By now. they knew Easton did not have an abdominal obstruction so I finally got the okay to nurse him. Finally.

Easton peed a little later, and they tested his urine.  By now, he was calming down some, and it looked like a UTI was to blame.  Easton received some antibiotics through his IV and was starting to look better.  Because of this, the ER doctor in charge said we didn't have to do the spinal tap right away. If he was still as irritable as he was when we arrived, they would do one.  But they wanted to observe him for a few days in the hospital, where he would continue to receive the same antibiotics.  In the meantime, they would test the urine culture against other antibiotics so they would know which oral one to prescribe. 

So, Lane went home to pack some things for Easton and me.  And, lucky us, we got to ride in an ambulance to the other unit of the hospital where we would be staying. 

So the EMTs arrived to our room with the stretcher and hooked Easton up into their little carseat stretcher buckles and off we rode to the hospital.  No sirens, and Easton drifted off to sleep on the way.  Thank goodness for that.

We didn't get checked into our room until around 7pm. I have to say that the ER staff at Children's Hospital in Oakland were all very thorough, transparent with the info they had to share, and responsive. Even if it was totally traumatic.  Poor little guy would burst into tears if anyone dared touch his arms the rest of the day.