A frustrating evening

Last night Bear and I spent the evening in the emergency room.  He is absolutely fine now, and it seems as though what we experienced was a complete fluke.  That said, the entire experience was an exercise in frustration for me.  Here is what happened.

We spent the afternoon at the pool swimming with the boys.  Both Bear and Wild Man love the water, and in an attempt to help them learn to swim better and to give our backs a rest, we bought both boys life jackets.  This meant that Bear was not attached to my hip and that I could allow him more freedom in the water.  It also means that he was much more active in the water than he has been the last few times we've gone to the pool.  We left the pool at 4:20 and headed home to prepare for a dinner with friends.  By the time we got home 10 minutes later, Bear was crying.  Archer and I both thought he was either tired or hungry.  As I took him into the house, it became very clear he was not tired or hungry.  First, he wasn't crying as much as he was screaming.  Second, he was squirming a lot, as though he was struggling to get comfortable.  I took him upstairs and laid him down on my bed.  I quickly changed into dry clothes and then took off Bear's diaper.  I though he might be struggling to poop, but he wasn't.  His stomach was, however, as hard as a rock.  I pumped his legs a few times to see if that would relieve the pain, and while he farted a lot, he continued to scream.  By then, our guests had arrived.  Archer came upstairs to check on Bear, and he tried to comfort him as well.  Bear responded by screaming "Mommy!"  So I sent Archer back downstairs to entertain and finish getting dinner ready.  Then, I walked with Bear, hoping that would calm him down.  Then, I put him in his crib (after he asked me to do so, something he has never done).  I rubbed his back, and he fell asleep for a few minutes, only to wake up screaming in pain.  Archer came back up to give me a bit of a break and to ask me to finish making cole slaw, something he thought would be easier for me to do than to explain to him.  He managed to get Bear calm and brought him downstairs a few minutes later.  For the next ten minutes or so, Bear clung to me, but he was calm.  He asked for water and tried to eat a potato chip.  Just as I was starting to relax, he started screaming again.  I took him back upstairs leaving Wild Man and Archer to deal with our guests.  After another 10 minutes of trying to determine why Bear was in so much pain, I decided to go to the ER.  I told Archer, who seemed a bit taken aback,* and we left. 

Being in the car seemed to calm Bear down (and in hindsight, I think the pressure of the straps on his stomach helped alleviate the pain), but he started crying as soon as I took him out.  Luckily it was a quiet night, so we were taken back almost immediately.  It likely helped that Bear screamed the entire time the triage nurse examined him and refused to let her touch his stomach.  The doctor saw Bear within 15 minutes of us being taken to the exam area, and he assured me I had done the right thing bringing him in.  He said, "It may just be that he drank too much water at the pool, but he is clearly in a great deal of pain."  He explained that Bear's pattern of getting very upset and then calming down was concerning him.  He said if it was just gas the pain would be more consistent until it dissipated in some way.  He was further concerned by the fact that none of the farting or belching Bear had done seemed to alleviate the pain at all.  So he ordered an x-ray, which only showed a lot of gas in Bear's system.  He then ordered an abdominal ultrasound to make sure it wasn't some sort of obstruction, assuring me if it was we would be catching it very early as Bear hadn't vomited.  Before we could do the ultrasound, Bear had to have an IV to get him hydrated as well as blood taken.  It took the nurses three tries, an hour, and my insistence that they put the damn IV in Bear's leg before we were through that ordeal (I also had to hold him down and endure my very verbal two year old telling me, "Mommy, please no more hurt!" as well as him asking for both Archer and Wild Man before it was over).  By then it was 8:30, and we'd been in the ER for 3 hours. 

After the IV was in, Bear cuddled in my arms and rubbed my hair.  He was so calm that one of the nurses just wheeled us back to radiology in the hospital bed.  He actually fell asleep during the ultrasound, which amazed both me and the technician.  By 9:30 we were back in the ER, and Archer was there.  After he'd gotten Wild Man asleep, he'd asked one of our friends to stay with Wild Man so he could come to the hospital to check on us.  By 10:20 the doctor came over to talk to us.  The ultrasound showed nothing out of the ordinary, and he told us we could go home once he'd gotten the results from the blood work.  By 11:10, those results were back, and they were clear.  So after giving us some instructions, the doctor released Bear.  We have no idea, really, what caused the sudden and severe pain.  The best explanation the doctor could give was that Bear had ingested too much chlorinated water, although he again admitted he was concerned about the level of pain and the way it seemed to come and go.  Bear slept through the night, and he was in good spirits this morning.  Aside from a bruise on his arm, where the nurses attempted to put the IV, he has no signs of his traumatic evening.

I, however, am frustrated.  Why?  Well, I'd like to give everyone at the damn hospital, with the exception of the doctor and the ultrasound technician, a lesson in dealing with children.  Everyone we encountered needs to work on their bedside manner, especially considering that this is an ER solely for children.  From the nurse who asked me if I wanted to wake up my just turned two year old to take him to go pee before trying to give him an IV (I mean, seriously?  And the way the question was framed made absolutely no sense.  It was as though the nurse was telling me that Bear was old enough to be potty trained) to the x-ray tech who told Bear to stop crying so she could get a clearer image (really, I'd like to know what two year old doesn't cry when his mother is forcing him into very awkward positions while he is clearly in pain) to the three nurses who preferred to keep trying to get the IV in his arm (they looked at me like I was nuts when, after three failed attempts, I adamantly insisted they put it in his ankle, where they got it on the first try) to the medical student who insisted on speaking to Bear like he could understand everything she said (I do understand that they are students, but seriously?  Has no one ever pulled them aside and said, "You don't need to raise your voice to speak to children.  And it's better if you explain things in a soft voice as simply as possible."  She literally seemed to want him to respond when she said, "Do you understand I'm going to examine you now?"  I said, as calmly as I could, "The only thing he understands is that he is in pain and in a strange place.  Get on with it, ok?").  Almost every person we encountered needs some instruction on how to deal with children and their parents.  And this isn't the first time I've experienced such frustration at the Children's Hospital.

Thankfully, however, Bear is fine. 

*Archer was taken aback because this is typically the kind of decision I agonize over.  I do not like hospitals.  I do not like taking my children to hospitals.  Every other time we've had to take the boys to the ER, we've only done so after a lengthy conversation and after consulting with either our own doctor or getting a friend's opinion.  He was taken aback, I think, because I made the decision without any discussion.