The ER

On Friday Jacob woke up from his nap and felt extremely hot. I took his temp - 102.3F. That's hot! But, in my memory, 105F was when you should panic. (Did I read this somewhere? I have no idea!) After Jacob sat perfectly still staring into space for 30 minutes, I decided to panic. I counted his respiration rate (13-14 breaths every 15 seconds) and tried to get a pulse (no luck, but I could see the vein in his neck pulsating).

I emailed John who nicely asked why I was wasting time contacting him instead of the doctor. Um, I don't know! I called the doctor's office and of course had to leave a voice mail. I also left a voice mail for Jacob's favorite pediatric nurse practitioner (aka Grandma). The doctor's office called back and told me to go to the ER because 1) it would be after 5 until I could get to their office and 2) Jacob's breathing was faster than you want to see in a 17-month-old.

Let me stop here to say that I've been lurking on too many medical blogs. One of my favorites is written by an ER doc. Now I'm afraid of being that patient who shows up and doesn't really need to be there.

I get to the ER and my least favorite ER doc is working. Great. We'll probably get a diagnosis of "fussy" and be sent home, which recently happened to Jacob's sick friend. (How exactly do you code "fussy", anyway?) Just the thought of dealing with this doctor almost gave me a panic attack.

The registration person talked to me for about two minutes and then called back to the nurses desk, "I have a 17 month old who is lethargic and in respiratory distress!" The nurse comes rushing out and looks around, obviously trying to find such a child, and looks questioningly at the registration person. "(motioning toward Jacob) Well, I wasn't sure how to describe him." "Hyperventilating. Well, bring him on back."

Jacob had a temp of 104F and a heart rate of 210. He got a big dose of ibuprofen from the nice triage nurse and was sent back out to the waiting room since all the exam rooms were full. This gave me plenty of time to encourage myself that I could tell this doctor that he was an idiot and demand that they contact the peds doc on call.

We must have been there over a shift change. Or maybe Dr Idiot remembered my name from the complaint letter we sent his boss after our encounter 4 years ago and he decided to make us wait until the shift change. Either way, we got another doctor who was polite and attempted to establish rapport with Jacob. Her diagnoses was a double ear infection. I think he probably also had a virus, but hey, Jacob was significantly better when we left the er 3 hours after arriving, so I wasn't going to argue. It's not like they could do anything for a virus anyway.

Due to my blog lurking, I had a better understanding of what the staff was experiencing and that helped me have a better experience than I would have otherwise. They had one patient with an overdose that slowed things down for a while. But, most of the staff were sympathetic to me having this toddler to pacify and several people apologized for the long wait. They happily gave him snacks, and the receptionist gave him a match box car when we left.

At one point when Jacob started feeling better, he started screaming extremely loud. I really loved over hearing this conversation: Person 1: "Ugh, he keeps crying. Why won't he be quiet?" Person 2: (in a very condescending tone) "He's sick. That's why they're in the EMERGENCY ROOM."

I also loved that the hospital data base had an employer listed for Jacob. The receptionist said, "Wow, Jacob! You must be very smart!"

Jacob continued to run a low grade fever all weekend, but he's doing much better.