Nolan's Little Adventure, or Nightmare at the ER

Last Sunday my little baby had his first trip to the emergency room, his first ambulance ride, and his first overnight hospital stay since he was born. And he was sick!

When my siblings and I were little, particularly my brother and I, we suffered from frequent and severe croup anytime we had the slightest respiratory illness. So when I put Nolan to bed Saturday night and then heard him wake up around midnight with a familiar barking cough, I knew exactly what was wrong. He worsened throughout the day, and finally in the late afternoon I called my dad (who is a doctor and a croup expert, thanks to us children!) who listened to him over the phone and recommended a trip to urgent care for a shot of decadron (steroid). So Nolan and I piled into the car and set off for the urgent care center. As I gathered my things, I noticed my phone battery was running low. It occurred to me to grab my charger, but then I thought, nah. (WHAT??? WHO DOES THAT?)

The doctors at the urgent care clinic listened to his stridor breathing and recommended a treatment of racemic epinephrine (via nebulizer). They warned me that if we went that route, I'd have to stay and wait for two hours afterward, since some babies can have an adverse reaction, or else it may treat the problem temporarily only to have it come back again. So we did that and also managed to get an oral steroid down. He hated the nebulizer epinephrine so much, but it was amazing, and within minutes his breathing was normal. And then we waited. By that point my phone was done, of course, and it was nearing 8:30 pm. (The clinic closes at 8). The doctor checked in on us and said Nolan sounded great, so he left to get our discharge papers. The nurse returned to check his oxygen saturation levels once more, and as she did, we heard that raspy breathing return. She called the doctor back in who said we'd have to repeat the treatment (and the two hour wait following) - but since the clinic was closing, he'd have to be transferred to the ER at the main hospital (several blocks north). And since he was a patient who required airway monitoring, he'd have to go by ambulance. Awesome.

Oh, kind of comical tidbit about the ambulance transfer: So first of all, Nolan got in the ambulance with the EMTs (they brought in a gigantic stretcher, then we put him in his car seat and strapped it on the stretcher!) and then I got in my car and followed the ambulance to the hospital several blocks away. At one point, I was stuck at a light that had just turned red after the ambulance went through, so I waited kind of impatiently, trying to see the ambulance ahead. Then I realized there was a racket coming from the car next to me. I turned to see a car full of guys leaning out the window and calling to me and having a great time, and I am certain that not one of them including the driver was even a little bit sober. I acknowledged them with a friendly noncommittal wave and then tried to ignore them while they continued. It was so awkward - I just wanted to find that ambulance that had my baby!

Anyway, I could sit and tell you the long version of the rest of the story (impressive if you made it this far!) but I won't. To sum up, after a long wait in the emergency department and several nebulizer steroid treatments, Nolan was admitted to the pediatric floor to be monitored overnight. (Translation: I would monitor his airway overnight.) It was about 1:30 in the morning when they took us upstairs, and we were both exhausted and miserable. He was poked and prodded at approximately ten minute intervals all night long (SERIOUSLY, they weighed him three times), and I just had to hold him while he cried hysterically all night because he was miserable and tired and couldn't breathe. Maybe you've held a baby in that state. Now imagine a solid 11 hours of that! Minus two 30-second bathroom breaks. Not exaggerating. We were pretty much both exhausted and crying, until about 5 am when in desperation I accidentally turned the hospital room's thermostat up to probably something like 95 (I couldn't figure out how to work it, and we were freezing), and we both sunk into a blissful stifling hibernation for almost two hours. WOW what an ordeal.

Meanwhile, remember my phone that was dead because I inexplicably decided NOT to bring a charger? So I can't call Travis to let him know what is going on and tell him we won't be home in time for him to work at 6 am. I managed to get a hold of one of the department phones in the emergency room, but other than that we were totally out of touch. To compound the problem, his phone had broken a few days before, so he was using my old one which did not have any of his contacts in it. He ended up having to take a sick day to stay home with the other kids on Monday morning. Fortunately, by morning Nolan was much more calm and his steroid treatments (5 or 6 in all) seemed to be working. We were able to take him home, and within another day his croup was gone. He was just left with a lingering fever and bad cough for the rest of the week. Poor little guy! Needless to say I carried him around all week and we did nothing else. It's so hard to watch little ones get so sick.

Of course, now Troy is sick too... and I believe he's actually sleeping in my bed. Now I'm off to tuck my other poor sick little son into bed and hope the ER nightmare is behind us!