Did you know that some Urgent Cares don't take all types of insurance? Yeah, me either. I found out when we arrived at Urgent Care at 9:30 AM. The triage nurse refused to let me leave due to Bug's poor breathing insurance or not. She lead us back to the triage room and took his vitals and whisked us back to a room. No waiting in the waiting room for us thankfully. A wonderful doctor showed up about 5 minutes later and looked Bug over. He was concerned by his tummy tenderness and the 60 breaths a minute he gauged Bug to be breathing at. And more concerned this had been going on since 4 AM. But through it all, he was so sweet with Bug. He even brought him a whole bunch of stickers for being such a trooper. He made a quick call to the Pediatrician on call and within 15 minutes we were out the door with a letter from him in hand to the local ER. He said he was calling ahead so they'd know to expect us.
The ER was only two blocks away. When we walked in they asked me if I was the woman with a child experiencing respiratory problems. I confirmed that I had just come from Urgent Care and they had him weighed, his temp taken (104!!!) and a Tylenol suppository to get his fever down in less than 5 minutes. I have never had faster service at an ER, ever. And I can't tell you how grateful I was. Bug at this point was just laying on me. Not really talking and so pale and just burning up.
A few minutes later and we were in an ER room with a nurse checking his vitals. About 20 minutes and a quick visit from a very nice visit from the ER doctor later, they had drawn 3 vials of blood and put in an IV to get him some fluids to help with the dehydration. He didn't even cry when they stuck him with the needle. He was such a trooper holding my hand and being so brave. I cannot express in words how proud of him I was through this whole ordeal. Even the doctor and nurses commented on how awesome he was, not crying or carrying on even though they could see he was scared and not feeling well.
To distract him from everything I took his picture with my crappy camera phone.
There were cute tigers on his gown and they put an ice pack between his legs and behind his neck to help bring his temperature down. My poor baby wasn't so excited about the IV line into his arm. :( But the nurse told him to not mess with it so he was super careful every time he moved. Have I mentioned how much of a trooper he was?
Over the next three hours Bug had a chest x-ray right there in his bed. He even smiled for the "camera" and managed to say cheese even though he was looking and feeling pretty awful. The nurse came and gave him some morphine for the pain and then we took a gurney ride to get an ultrasound. He had been sleeping off and on whenever he wasn't being poked or prodded by the staff. Again, this whole time he wasn't really saying anything unless someone asked him a direct question. But after that morphine. He perked right up - vocally at least. He chatted about how he was hungry now (for the first time all day - at 1pm) and how he wanted eggs and three pieces of ham and toast. And then he fell asleep during the ultrasound. The tech had to wake him up twice to get him to roll over so he could get a better view of things.
By the time we got back to our room The Hubs had arrived - after leaving early on day 3 of his new job. Could the timing on these things get any worse??? About 20 minutes later the doctor came back with results. Turns out our little Bug has pneumonia. Who know that pneumonia presents as a tummy ache? Who knew you could have pneumonia and have no other obvious respiratory issues like a cough or a runny nose or anything? Guess we know to be on the look out for that in the future. The released us a bit later with antibiotics and Tylenol with codeine for the pain. And strict instructions to see our normal pediatrician tomorrow.
We brought him home and he fell asleep while I was making his eggs, ham and toast. After even the first round of antibiotics and Tylenol/codeine he's feeling so much better. His breathing still isn't wonderful, but I'm hoping that will be improved by tomorrow. At least he's not acting like I'm going to lose him at any moment anymore.
I have to say, this was probably the most stressful and scary time in my whole life. Seeing him lying there in a hospital whimpering and having trouble breathing was.. yeah, I don't have the words for what that was. I never want to experience that again. It could have been worse though. I'm thankful it wasn't his appendix or something else requiring surgery. I'm not sure my heart would have survived that. And the staff at both Urgent Care and the Hospital was so overwhelmingly supportive and wonderful. They even checked to make sure I had eaten and was okay. And even as I type this, the doctor from Urgent Care just called to find out how he was doing. To find out what the diagnosis was and to just check on Bug in general. WOW. I'm overwhelmed. I may cry... again. It's been an emotional day.
Seriously.. Thoughts?
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