serves me right to be bragging on thursday how i was baby free for the evening and jamie and i were going out for date night....that was a short lived fantasy. just after supper my mom called to say that she was feeding avery supper, and because she didn't have a kiddie fork, she was using a plastic fork. avery, being the hulk that he is, when he decided he didn't want another bite chose to bite down on the fork, broke the tine and then before my mom could fish it out of his mouth, he swallowed it. she called me to tell me, and i laughed saying 'oh, what a bugger, it'll come out of his diaper, no worries'. well, then she talked to my dad who got stressed and suggested she call telecare to see if he needed to go to the doctor. she called me, so i did the best thing i knew and google 'my child swallowed something sharp'. of course the recommendation there is to go to the hospital asap.
so that's what we did. i knew there would be a wait and an estimated wait time of four hours was given. yikes. four hours in an ER, with a toddler who was 30 minutes from his bed time. he did well until about 10 pm, $*^T really hit the fan then. he could not be comforted (not without his bubba, which he wasn't allowed to have) so i braced myself for the thirty minutes of bone chilling crying (and secretly cringed/apologized on the inside for the other ER folks who had to hear it all) until avery collapsed in a heap of exhaustion. our four hour wait came and went and at the five hour mark we were called into the examination room, only to wait for another hour before the doctor finally came to 'examine' avery. and by examine means that she glanced at his head, looked at the fork, sighed and said 'she'll be right back'....i'm guessing she went to google as well? upon return she seemed annoyed that we were there, and if he didn't choke it down, what was the problem? hi...sharp object in my child's stomach.
she claimed at 'at this time of night' there wasn't much we could do and how it had been so long since the incident it would no longer be in his stomach. maybe the whole six hour wait time didn't help matters?
finally, he suggestion was that he be admitted for the night for observation and he could see the doctor in the morning.
so we waited some more and around 3 am we settled into his room, where is he was woken up, measured and poked and prodded a little bit before they let us get some rest. avery fell asleep with me and when i was sure he was in a deep enough sleep, i moved him to his crib for the night, where thankfully he slept without any problems until 8 am. but he didn't wake up a happy baby, no food since 5:30 pm the day before, no night time/morning bottle and no breakfast made for a very fussy, lethargic baby. he barely left mine and my mom's arms all day. the pediatrician came in the morning to examine him and said that he was basically in good health and was showing no signs of problems from the plastic. her recommendation would be to send him home and watch his stools, but since he was not admitted under her name, she could not make that call. and apparently the ER doc from the night before had set him up with x rays, an ultrasound and a surgical consult....but even still she wasn't avery's doctor, he was admitted to another doctor altogether, who came by and stared at him through the window of his hospital door before leaving and coming back seven hours later. to say it was a frustrating day would be an understatement. no one could make a decision, no one seemed to have the right to do anything, just some maybe's and such. all the while avery cried and cried for food....
i know it's such a minor situation and there are a lotta babies and families going through a lot worse things...but it was still very annoying that no one could decide what to do. at one point the nurse said that based on the ped's recommendation, they were just waiting on approval from his doc to go home so it would be 'fine for him to eat and drink', which i let him do as soon as he woke up. not an hour later he was being sent for x ray's! so i guess the nurse was confused at well, and he shouldn't have eaten....such a lack of communication.
after his x ray's was a few more hours of waiting and finally his doctor came around to check out his x ray's where she found no blockage, the surgeon also had a look and said that he would not traumatize avery by going in to look for something that he might end of passing on his own. so we sent home with strict instructions to return if it didn't pass within 2-3 stools, or if he seemed unwell. i was hoping that he could pass it naturally because there was no way i wanted him to have surgery! especially when one nurse commented on how hard it would be to give him an IV since he has such fat hands.
thankfully, this afternoon he passed the piece of plastic on his own.
wheeew, what a sigh of relief.
i hope we do not ever have to see the ER again!! i'm still traumatized from that place from when jamie had his accident two years ago.
semi-happy baby in the waiting room
stalking two people for their food in the waiting room
waiting to be examined
waiting to be admitted
sleeping in the morning...
waking up and not happy
trying to play in the play room
waiting for his x ray results
the culprit made his escape!
this mama is ready to crash into bed and it's barely 9 pm on a saturday night...
i need to catch up on some sleep.
xo,
melissa
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