Saturday, April 25, 2009

Question of the Day

I feel like chatting today.

So I'm wondering, have you had to take yourself or your kids, nieces, nephews, grandkids, etc to the emergency room?

What happened? How long did you have to wait? Were you scared?

I've had three visits split between two kids. One was very scary (feverish newborn, getting lost on the way to the hospital, mixed with a case of post partum blues), one was bloody (gash to eyelid, kid looked like Rocky Balboa), another scary one (baby with black poo and vomit, I later figured out he had been gnawing on an adult vitamin).

All in all, enough to add grays to my not-yet gray hair.

How about you?

10 comments:

Steph said...

I've been to the emergency room 3 times, but they were all for bone fractures so it wasn't too nerve wracking. The wait was insane though! Even when the room wasn't that full, we would spend the entire day sitting and waiting. I almost wanted to walk out once, but then as I got up, I realized I couldn't walk..haha so I sat back down my wheelchair.

chocolatechic said...

I have been to the ER several times for my kids.

Stitches, my girls gall bladder incision completely ripped open and her guts were exposed...that was a bit unnerving...

Superman has had to have stitches several times...I was ornery the first time and while he was sitting there all bloody waiting for the doc to stitch him up, I made him watch some gory real life ER TV show...

Elyse said...

I've rarely been to the emergency room, but my boyfriend Todd has been waaaay too many times. Chalk it up to sports injuries. He's had a gashed eyelid, a detached tear duct, lots of deep cuts and abrasions, etc. Too many trips!

Megan said...

Whoa - way more times than I'd like to think about. Mostly Alexander - the last time we went he took a header off his bike and we thought he broke his arm.

ER's here are awful - long waits are the norm.

Snooky doodle said...

wow pretty scary. Thank god so far I ve never had such emergencies.

Anonymous said...

No trips to the ER for me, urgent care a lot--but luckily no ER trips.

suz said...

I'm a fixture in ER's and hospitals in general; an old pro. It can be scary (especially to bring your child), but I've found that often when you do go to the ER you can get better care that at your regular doctor. Mostly because you are scared and they want to help you figure out things.

Mary said...

I just took my next door neighbor..he had a rash that had spread up his face till he couldn't move his mouth..we were worried he had a stroke but he is OK now. Last year I took my son, who fell out of the high chair grabbing cheese from his brother (ah, the joys of two toddler boys :)...) It wasn't scary so much as slow and annoying...good question.

Bunny said...

The last time I had to go to the er for a kid was last yr, Mike (13) was out with his friends monkeying around and broke his leg. I'll never forget a trip to the er when my daughter was little. She always got a fever in the middle of the night when she got sick that was high so we took her to the er. There was a woman and a couple people in the waiting room. They were waiting to see how her husband was, evidently his car bumper got hooked on another bumper and he stood on his car bumper kinda jumping on it to get it unhooked and must have fallen off and hit his head. His wife and friends in the waiting room were joking about it, then the Doctor came out (just like you see in the movies) and told her he passed away. It was aweful!! They had no idea that it was that bad!!!!

NKP said...

I have had to go with my son, about 3 at the time, for sepsis. Nobody believed me that he was sick, the doctors, my inlaws - they were terrible to me and made my feel bad but I insisted, I knew by his personality that something was wrong. Then, his fever spiked in the hospital and they took him in. They told me after that another couple of hours and he would have died. Mother's intuition wins every time.

My daughter fell off the couch she was jumping on when she was little, and we had two tiny boys at home - so I left them at home with dad and marched over to the neighbour to take us to the hospital. He worked there so they ushered us right in. Even though he was just a fund raiser! Lets you know who has the real power!

On average though, emerg is 5-8 hours here for the wait.