life in the garden of eden.

Thank you to those who left me IMs last night/this morning. Sorry I didn’t respond!  I’m at work now; after two and a half hours of sleep, I don’t think I’m going to be very productive today.

Or coherent.

The on call doctor finally called about 7:30 pm last night. When we told him what was going on, he told us to take Aya to the ER immediately.

Crap.

We got checked in about 7:50 pm and went through triage. During triage, there was a guy a few feet away screened off by a curtain. He was moaning and groaning in pain. Aya was worried about it.  The nurse attending the guy joked, “There was a guy in here last week who said we were torturing him. Would we do that?” Aya’s eyes got huge. Yeah, way to freak out the 5 year old, asshole.

We got Aya to give a urine sample, and waited. And waited. And waited more. There were quite a few people there who apparently made a habit of seeking regular treatment for non-urgent health concerns at the emergency room. One of the staff brought out cookies and juice for everyone, which perked Aya up until they said people with stomach complaints couldn’t have any. That made her cry.

One guy shambled in with a head wound of some sort. His hair was gray, except at the top, where it was gashed and red with blood. There was blood spattered on his shirt. He was wearing a three piece suit. I don’t think Aya saw him. Another guy almost crawled in, doubled over in pain. His wife was trying to hold him up. He looked like he had kidney stones.

By 10:30 pm, the ER lobby had more kids than adults. A couple babies, a lot of whimpering toddlers. Lots of tired, red-eyed parents. A couple of very pregnant mothers. Most of the little ones seemed to have cold symptoms. One girl, looked to be about Aya’s age, had a huge cut on her chin. It kept bleeding through the gauze she’d been supplied with. She didn’t seem that concerned.

Aya was exhausted.

“Mom, I’m tired,” she whispered. “My stomach hurts. And my head. And my throat.” She touched her abdomen, her forehead, and her throat.

“Do you feel like you need to throw up?” I asked. I have issues with that. I blame my mom.

“No. . . not really. But my stomach hurts. I want to sleep.”

“Aw. . . try to sleep, lovey,” I said.

She stuck her lower lip out. Her eyes were glassy. “It’s too loud. And I can’t get comfortable. I’m scared, Mom. “

“There’s nothing to be scared of, love. Try resting your head on my shoulder,” I suggested and put my arm around her.

She tried that for a while, then said, “I want to go home and sleep in my own bed.”

So did I.

There was this dude who kept turning up the volume on the TV and changing channels. There isn’t anything worth watching on network TV that late. And neither Family Guy nor Sex in the City are appropriate entertainment for a 5 year old, by the way. Her eyes got huge as she puzzled through some of the innuendo. At least Seinfeld wasn’t as bad.

Around 11:30 pm, ER staff brought out warm blankets for people. Aya curled up on a blanket on the floor and tried to sleep. She couldn’t. The TV was still too loud. The lobby doors kept opening and closing. Her stomach hurt. Her head hurt. Her nose was running.

The TV changer dude got pissed, stopped fidgeting, and found a nurse and ranted about having to wait so damn long. They brought him back after about five more minutes. A young woman waited, wheelchair-bound, tears streaming down her face. She had a high fever and a headache. Apparently she’d collapsed on a local college campus after an asthma attack. Her friend found a nurse and ranted about having to wait so damn long. After about five minutes, they brought her back.

I began to see a theme.  People didn’t get in unless they bitched.

A couple had brought a laptop and a lot of movies to entertain themselves as they waited and invited Aya to watch Pirates of the Caribbean with them, so she did for a while. By 1:00 a.m., I was really tired and even more irritated with the delay. I told Brian that if Aya wasn’t in within 15 minutes, we were going home so she could get some sleep and we’d just follow up with her PCP or Urgent Care tomorrow morning.

I went up and tried to find a nurse to find out when my daughter might possibly be seen. Couldn’t get an answer, so I waited by the reception desk.

While I was waiting, a nurse poked her head out and called Aya’s name.

“Yes?” I said, moving toward the door.

“No, no, I just wanted to see if she was still here.” The nurse hurriedly closed the door. Less than a minute later, she stuck her head out again and called for another patient, asking if they were still there. Before she could close the door again, I walked over to her.

“Excuse me, my daughter’s been waiting to be seen for more than five hours. Can I find out how much longer it will be before a doctor can see her?”

“No, I have no idea.” The nurse had an attitude.

I tried to be polite. “Can you tell me how many more patients are in line before her?”

“No.”

“I mean, can you at least give me an estimate? Another hour?” I started to get strident.  I probably had a vicious look on my face. “Another five hours?”

“No, I can’t. We have a patient who’s been in a bed since 6:30 p.m. and hasn’t even seen doctor yet. I’m just trying to find out who hasn’t left yet.”

“Fine.” I started to get an attitude. There was a sign posted on the doors indicating that if you were leaving and hadn’t seen a doctor, to check with a nurse or security. She was a nurse. “Can we just leave then?”

“Oh, oh, you can leave.” The nurse scoffed. “We call everyone’s names three times before we take them out of rotation.”

“Fine.” I walked back to Brian. I was very irritated and kind of loud. People turned their heads to watch.  ”They have no idea when she could be seen. They have people who’ve been waiting in a room for almost seven hours, and I don’t want to wait another seven hours. Let’s go.”

We got her stuff together and headed for the door.

They called her in, apologizing for the delay, chuckling nervously.

We got the little one comfortable, found a heavy sheet to put over her so she could try to sleep. She was anxious, kind of scared. She put on a brave smile. I explained some of the equipment in the room. And she did finally fall asleep about 1:45 am. We listened to her snore softly and waited. And waited.

By 2:15 am, the doctor showed up, apologizing for the delay. They need a bigger hospital, he said. And more staff. He asked us questions, poked and prodded the sleeping kid, remarked on her “generous tonsils,” had us rub her awake so he could look in her ears and gag her with a tongue depressor.

“I know what’s wrong with her,” he concluded.

“Tonsillitis?” I guessed.

“No, they’re swollen, but not all that red right now. She’s got a UTI. . . the urinalysis came back, well, very positive, especially for a clean catch. There’s no doubt about it. With the sequence of symptoms, she probably had a fever spike, and that explains the vision symptoms. Not a migraine, brain tumor, nothing like that. You don’t need to worry about that.”

“Ah.” Well, that kind of makes sense, I thought.  ”That’s quite a relief.”

“Has she ever had a UTI before?”

Aya lay down and closed her eyes again.  She was out like a light. “Once, when she was potty-training.”

“This is her second? You’ll need to follow up with her regular doctor. Sorry you had to wait so long for this. I’ll get her a prescription for antibiotics. A nurse will bring it in, then you can leave.”

After the doctor headed over to the next room, I groused at Brian. “Yeah. . . six and a half hours, for that? I could have brought her to Urgent Care for the same diagnosis and we’d have had her home before midnight. Or they could have least done the preliminary work and then sent her here.”

“Next time, we’ll know,”  Brian demurred.  He doesn’t get nearly as pissy as I do. 

I want to sleeeeeep.

Tags: aya, health, parenting