J.'s first trip to the ER

At around 3am this morning, J. woke up with a barking cough and his breathing was raspy and sounded like he was wheezing.

I threw him in the car and called the walk-in pediatrics clinic - they were closed so we headed to the local ER. Note tht there are three ERs in our general area. I chose the one that was closest and that least likely to have me waiting along with gun shot victims.

We got there and OF COURSE, his breathing improved. I swear, this ALWAYS happens. A good thing, of course, but it makes me feel like I am crazy. Well, they took us anyhow and ordered up a chest x-ray. Overall, J. was pretty good. He fussed minimally, though he was very squirmish. The worst part was that in my haste I forgot to bring a clean pull-up and he wet through the one he had. It turned out to be a good potty training lesson though because I had him peeing every 10 minutes in the bathroom to keep from having a real issue on my hands.

The x-ray came back clear, but when J. coughed, the doctor diagnosed him with croup. He was given a steroid and we were pretty much sent on our way. All of this took about 3 hours.

What killed me about the hospital was that while the nurse and the doctor were friendly, the rest of the staff were dreadful! Couldn't crack a smile to save someone's life (literally). I swear, they were giving me dirty looks...either for merely existing in their space or because I didn't have on make-up. Who knows. The billing clerk, who was somewhat unfriendly at first, finally warmed up when J. started asking for a lollipop. But then, she made me want to crawl under a rock and cry for days when she told me that her grandson, who is J.'s age, has cancer and is being treated for a brain tumor.

Hospitals are such happy places.

Hubby is out of town so of course, something like this was destined to happen! I think I am going to create a blog category called "When Hubby is Away" because seriously, things like this WAIT to happen until he goes out of town. Examples include my dog nearly dying of pancreatitis, me getting into a car accident when I was 19 weeks pregnant with J., a fire engulfing the woods surrounding our neighborhood, and fire alarms going out throughout the house and having no way to turn them off. I am certain there are others.

So now it's 9:00am - I am operating on 4 hours of sleep and SOOOOO looking forward to the massage and acupuncture treatments I have scheduled for today! It's my Calgon.