Ethan's First Trip to the ER

Thursday night was one of the worst nights of my life. It all began when we put Ethan to bed. He went to bed at 9pm with no complaints. I noticed on the monitor that he was moving a lot and seemed like he couldn't get comfortable. At 10pm he came to the kitchen and said he couldn't sleep. His voice was shaky and he seemed a little weird. We ended up laying down with him after reading a book. He fell asleep for a few minutes then woke up screaming in pain. He was crying and holding his stomach saying "My tummy hurts" and writhing around on the bed. I could tell from his cry that he was in severe pain. I thought maybe he just had an upset stomach and kept asking him if he needed to go to the bathroom and he said no. He finally calmed down and went back to sleep. 20 minutes later he woke up and did the same thing with the screaming and holding his tummy. This went on for two hours. Finally, I called his pediatrician. She told me to go to the ER at Childrens. I hung up with her and called my mom. I completely lost it when I was trying to tell her what was going on and told her to come over and watch Caleb. I think she and Dad were there within 5 minutes (I love living down the street from my parents!).

We got to Childrens at 1:30am and waited until 4:30am to be seen. We met the nurse, explained what was going on, she took his vital signs, then we didn't see her for 1.5 hours! She never came in to check on him or let us know what was going on. As a nurse myself, that did not go over well with me. He fell asleep during that time and the room was freezing and he had no pillow or blanket. I had to ask the lady from registration if he could have a blanket. I'm thinking, we are at a pediatric hospital right? Shouldn't they be thinking of these things??? Anyway, we saw two different doctors (one was a resident) and they said they were going to do an xray of his abdomen and a sonogram to rule out appendicitis and also draw blood. The nurse came in to draw blood and had IV stuff with her. I immediately said that the doctor didn't say anything about an IV. She said it is their protocol to start and IV when they draw labs to have access to a line if needed. That was fine. Of course right before she started, Ethan had his stomach pain again. He rolled over on his stomach and started crying and saying his tummy hurt. I asked her is she could wait a few minutes until the pain passed to start the IV. She kind of blew me off like she didn't have the time to wait or thought I was just being over protective. She just grabbed his arm out from under him and said she could start it while he was laying on his stomach. The whole process was horrible. I tried to be strong and not cry but I lost it. Ethan was screaming for me and Mondo and thrashing on the bed. Two people had to hold him down. She was able to get blood out of the IV but couldn't thread it all the way in so she had to take it out. She then started looking for another vein. I stopped her and asked he if it was really necessary to start an IV because I didn't think he needed it. She went and looked at the orders and came back and said they could wait on the IV until it was needed. I was still crying after the nurse left. Mondo gave Ethan a big hug after it was all over and lost it too. I'm sure we were quite a sight, losing it over a little IV stick! But it was so sad!!!

He slept off and on for the next few hours while we were waiting for more things to be done. He had his xray pretty soon after the IV so that didn't go well. We promised it wouldn't hurt and that it was just a picture but I don't think he believed us. He cried through the whole thing. He took one standing up and one laying down on his stomach. Then it was back to the room for more waiting. At this point it is shift change (7am) and I never saw my nurse after the IV stick. Basically we were there for hours and saw her twice. He had his sonogram at 8am and did fine with that. We had to wake him up to go for that. Poor thing hardly got any sleep. When we got back from that he was feeling better. He was standing at the door with his hands on his hips saying "Where's my nurse? I need some apple juice!" We saw our new nurse at around 7:30am then never saw her again. At 9am I went to the desk and asked for my nurse and some apple juice and the nurse at the desk said "Oh, I'm your new nurse. We had to switch." What kind of hospital is this??? So Ethan was happy to get his juice and I was mad about the nurse situation. Now it's 10am and we still don't have the results from the sono which is what we are waiting for to get the heck out of there. They initally said it would take an hour. At this point, we were the only people left on the entire hall. I was getting ready to find a supervisor when the doctor appeared and said that the results were negative for appendicitis and he just had some gas. I'm thinking, "seriously, gas is causing him this much pain?!" At that point I was just ready to get out of there. Throughout the whole stay he did have the episodes of stomach pain off an on but not as frequent as he did at home.

We all fell asleep when we got home and slept for a few hours. He ate some grapes when he got up around 3pm. He hadn't eaten since 6pm the night before. My parents kept Caleb until we went over there about 4:30. Ethan never got off my lap while we were there. That told me he really was sick! We went to pick up dinner from Pei Wei's because he requested noodles. We barely made it out of the parking lot and he threw up all the grapes he had eaten earlier. We had to pull over and strip him down. His car seat was pretty disgusting so I belted him in the back with me and covered him with a blanket. Luckily we live pretty close to Pei Wei's. We got him home and cleaned up and he felt hot. He had a fever of 101. I gave him some Tylenol and he passed out for a few more hours.

I slept with him Friday night and Mondo dealt with Caleb. He slept pretty well. I gave him Tylenol a couple of times for fever. He never threw up but was listless and complained about his tummy a lot. He made a grunting/moaning type of noise throughout the night. Of course, I didn't sleep very well. We went to bed at 10pm and woke up at 830am with broken up sleep.

He didn't eat much today (Saturday) and drank a little. His fever has been 101-102 and he is still complaining of stomach pain and whimpering off and on. He threw up again after eating some fruit literally right after I left for work. I timed that well. :-) He's like a little rollercoaster. He'll be fine for a while and wanting to play and then he'll start crying about his stomach and his temp will be back. He'll say "I need medicine and water." Luckily the Tylenol is grape flavor so he loves it.

So, I'll see how he does tomorrow (Sunday) and possibly take him to the Dr. on Monday if he's not better. I just feel bad like there's something really wrong with him and I'm missing it. I guess it's the nurse in me...and the worried mother. Oh, and needless to say, we won't be going back to Children's again...ever!