I really didn't want to do this, Mimi works from home on Fridays and my gut was telling me to stay home. I felt like I needed to go teach Zack, though, because we need the money and I had fronted them about 60 bucks for music which I was expecting to be re-imbursed for yesterday. I also needed to stop by Abbey's dentist to pick up her school form because they would not fax it. So I went. Zack's folks forgot to pay me and the dentiset was closed.
I get home to Abbey finally and she's OK but pretty swifly deteriorates. All day she had been complaining about a sharper pain in her belly. The kicker for me was when she refused to walk to the potty and then started screaming from the pain. I checked the Dr. Sears site which lists these symptoms as the ones to check out. Abbey had all of them except that her pain was centered and not lower right.
- Severe right lower abdominal pain
- Constant pain – it usually doesn't come and go
- Gradually increased pain – the pain will usually get worse and worse
- Fever
- Refusal to eat
- Vomiting – this is sometimes present, but not always
- Refusal to walk – a child with appendicitis will often lie down curled up in a fetal position
I called her doctor and she recommended that we head to the ER to rule out a bladder infection and appendicitis. Yay, a trip to the ER on Friday night. John is still not home so I go to my house and get supplies for Ella to sleep over at Mimi's and head out. Abbey won't walk so I have to carry her and she's heavy! So we get checked in and sit around for awhile before we ar called back for triage where the nurse is pretty harsh when I rate Abbey's pain at a 9 or 10 FOR HER. Since I know her pretty well and this really is the most pain that I've ever seen her in. But somehow my telling the nurse my opinion is not letting her do her job. Then we wait.
Then the debate starts. I'm not sure if I know of a better torture than sitting in the ER with a sick child and being a captive audience for this crap they're calling election coverage this year. I'm decided and I'm done. Anyway, I thought I'd try and call John and see what he was doing, Mimi had said that she had called while I was on my provision run. So I called and god damn it if he wasn't slurring. And answering the phone while driving drunk. Yay.
So back to the good ole ER, the admitting table called out a name, that sort of sounded like Abigail but really didn't because of how strong of an accent the woman used. She didn't use this accent while speaking directly to me, so I didn't catch it. It was only when they called the folks who had come in behind me that I put 2 and 2 together that Abigaeil was my Abbey. I'm still carrying Abbey at this point so I struggle over to her and ask if she had indeed called Abbey and of course she had but could I just wait a minute while she finished with these people? Sure! Let me just lean here on the wall a little. So finally after she finished with those folks she looks up and finally someone who works there (I've been there well over an hour at this point) asks me if I need a wheel chair. Yes thanks. So I fork over my 75 bucks and get Abbey settled into the wheel chair and we go over to wait by the fish. John finally shows up. reeking of booze. yay.
Finally they call us back, but again the thick accent of the people who work there made it hard for me to know what was going on. So we go back to the room, and wait, and the doctor comes in and checks her out. He pokes her belly and orders a cat scan to rule out the problem with the appendix and also wants her to pee in a cup. And of course get an IV. Our nurse, Casey, could be Matt G's long lost brother, he had the same way of speaking, it was eery. He also had the same birthday as Abbey and also had a son her age. He placed a hep lock which Abbey slept through. But she has to drink the nasty barium stuff so we spend the next hour force feeding her little sips of it. Meanwhile, John has decided to tell me that this is all wrong and that I've made the wrong choice to bring her to the ER. He doesn't tell the doctor this, in fact he didn't peep to the doctor, he just tells me like it's all my fault. Great. So of course it's miserable there we wait and wait, and then Abbey finally went for her scan. She fell asleep in the scanner, and then we wait and wait to hear that her appendix is fine but her large intestine is really swollen and is what is causing the pain. And her white blood cell count was worrisomely high. So finally after only 5 hours we're released and head home. She's still sleeping, is still fevered and we are not out of the woods. She has to stay hydrated and has to see her doctor on monday. What a nightmare. I can't say that I wouldn't bring her again if she was exhibiting those symptoms and I'm not sure what I was supposed to do.
I'm very relieved that Abbey doesn't need surgery. I'm beyond upset with John for being such an amazing jerk to me in that situation. There is one certainty, if I should ever need to do this again he is NOT the person I would call. I'm contemplating calling him out on his drunkenness in front of his parents today when we go get Ella. Must decide what the most appropriate way to handle this is because I don't think I can ignore it or forget it.
Ok, I'm off to check her.
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