Trauma, Life in the E.R.

If nothing else, I got a crash course on medical emergencies. Oh the joys of daycare. I put Anthony in a new daycare. Aunt Pauline was a little upset about that, but I felt it was best that he be able to play with some kids his age. They were real helpful with the potty training and getting him off of the bottle. Funny thing about that, both of Aunt Pauline's daughters became employees of that daycare. They were determined to keep an eye on him.

The thing with daycare, is germs. I'm not sure where it came from, but Anthony was pretty sick. I layed in bed with him and counted breaths between coughs. It was obvious after just a few minutes that he was definitely in distress. I jolted Leap awake and announced that we were going to the emergency room. In his sleepy state, he asks why. I let him know that there was no time to argue about it, we are going. He can either get dressed and come along or rot in hell if he doesn't. That woke him up and he got dressed and out the door we went.

This is not Anthony's first trip, remember the burns? This kid is smart, so he knows that nothing good is going to happen here. The doctor looks him over and does a little snot test, and informs me almost immediately that he has RSV and that we would be admitted, and quaranteened. This doesn't sound very appealing. I mention this to the doctor and ask if we can't just have some medicine and go home. They inform me this is a very serious condition for this little one and we will be admitted. What they mean is, I am staying in the hospital with my little one.

I have to be brave, and show that I'm not completely freaked out. (Which I am) We are shuffled up to the pediatric unit and then I'm informed that he has to have an IV. I have to be brave, and show that I'm not completely freaked out. (Which I am) Leap is probably less thrilled than me. Neither one of us have ever heard of RSV. I have issues with this man who is father to five and has never heard of it either. Is this some new disease? They assure me it's been around for a while. We all survive the administering of the IV, although I don't know exactly how. They taped a block to his hand to keep him from pulling it out. Good thinking, I don't ever want to have to experience this again.

We are then escourted to our quarantine room and the next obstacle. This would be the giant cage that they called a crib. Anthony wanted no part of it. It looked scary to him and he said as much. He's about 18 months old, and seriously knows what he likes and doesn't like. It looks nothing like a crib, I explained to him that it was a crib. He said he's a big boy and he won't sleep in no crib. So for 3 nights, we slept together in a chair that converted into a so called cot. Not fun, especially with a sick little boy that has a string on a block on his hand. He finally recovered enough that we were released. But the only problem was, I ended up with the adult version after being exposed to a roomful of infected children.



The kids come faithfully, every other weekend. The picture above is how Anthony and Rascal would wait for them to arrive, and how they would watch them leave. This always brought Anthony great joy and heartbreak. He would wait patiently for them to arrive. The kids loved him and fussed over him constantly. Those weekend visits would have to end on Sunday evening. As soon as it was time for them to get their shoes on to go home, Anthony would cry. He would cry, he would sob, he would beg, he would plead.....please don't go. Once he started crying, the kids would cry as well.

Leap built the kids an olympic sized sandbox. It was right next to the olympic sized garden. We had a great back yard, all fenced in. We grew our own pumpkins for halloween, corn, onions, carrots, peas, beans, peppers, and broccoli. The first year, Leap and I never even got to taste the broccoli, the kids ate every bit of it. They also ate most of the cucumbers and tomatoes. The years that followed, he cut back on the peppers and planted more broccoli. Leap loved his garden and took great pride in handing out his extra produce to our friends.



One Sunday afternoon, Anthony was laying on our bed watching E.T. He was snacking on Reese's Peices, he took his movies seriously. Leap and I are in the living room watching a football game. I believe I was also cooking dinner during commercials. I went into the kitchen to do something and I hear Anthony crying. I peeked in the bedroom and sure enough he is sitting on the bed, crying. I asked him what was wrong and he said he got something stuck in his nose. I asked him what was stuck and through the tears he said, a candy.

Ok, how do you get a Reese's Pieces out of a kid's nose? I yelled for Leap to come and help me figure this one out. We layed him down on the bed, and sure enough there was a yellow one up there. There is no getting the logic of a two year old on this one. We tried to get him to snort it out, closing his other nostril and asking him to blow without sucking in first. You get the picture? No luck there, so we went to urgent care.

Parents should be given a lifelong prescription for valium or something. Seriously, we should have access to stress releivers at all times. We were there for hours. And nobody could get the damn thing out. They finally called a specialist and said that they were going to have to tie him in this thing. This freaked Anthony out beyond reason. He was hysterical. Screaming, crying, pleading that he would hold still, please don't tie me up. Leap and I got kicked out of the room, they felt that we were making matters worse. So we're kicked out, the specialist arrives. After about an hour, the specailist comes out carrying Anthony and they are laughing and chatting about quarterbacks! He tells us that the Reese's Pieces must have disolved because he couldn't find anything. He asked us how old Anthony was and we said two. The doctor was amazed that Anthony knew every starting quarterback for every NFL team.

As we were walking out to the car, the fire whistle was going off. We could see smoke coming from near our neighborhood. I kind of had a mini-stroke, wondering if I had turned off the burners on the stove. I was in the process of cooking dinner when this emergency happened. On that 4 minute drive home, I was scared to death. We couldn't get home fast enough. What a relief to turn down our street and see the smoke is still to the east of us. I had remembered to turn off the burners. But I always worry about stuff like that, and that's where it came from.