ER Visit

On the way home from my sister's, I woke up to Nathanial barking in the back seat. When we got home, he was very hot and really barking and seeming to have some difficulty breathing. So, we slathered on the Baby Vicks and headed to the shower after getting Noah, Ethan, Austin, and Aidan to bed. We spent an hour in the steam filled bathroom, and he seemed a tiny bit better, but not a lot.

Steve wanted to try to put him to bed and see if sleeping would help him feel better. We laid him down while we unloaded the car and put everything away. Then I listened to him through the monitor and it sounded like he was now barking with every intake of breath. I decided he was going, because he didn't sound well and I wasn't going to sleep anyway. I went in to wake him up and was very glad that I did, because he was having a lot of difficulty by that point.

By the time we got to the ER, he was having retractions and just not breathing well. He loves blowing raspberries, but he was doing it every single time he would take in a breath...like he was trying to get more air that way.

Unfortunately, we had the doctor on call whom we have philosophical differences with. But, what are you going to do? She gave him a breathing treatment and that didn't help at all. Then she waited a while and finally decided that she would put him on Zithromax, prednisone, and a cough medicine "so I could sleep." She gave him the Zithromax and prednisone in the ER. He threw most of it up, but we tried. I was frustrated because I don't want my kids to have antibiotics unless they are clearly needed. She didn't even have a diagnosis for him!

We went home and he did sleep well. I kept the monitor on loud and barely slept, trying to listen to him. I did go back to bed this morning and Steve kept an eye on the boys for a few hours.

Noah's ER Visit

Poor Austin got the shaft on his actual birthday. Noah decided that he would choose this afternoon to do something to his eye. Everything was fine and dandy when we went to get Aidan from school and rush to get pictures taken after picking up Aidan before picking up Austin. So I get the babies out and start loading them in their stroller, when I notice that Noah isn't opening his one eye. And when I pried it open, it was bright red. Fantastic. I figured he just poked himself in the eye and everything would be fine (he does that a lot). When we got home from picking up Austin, he was still weird with his eye. So I decided to check it and really look at it around 4:45, so I would have time to call the doctor if need be. Well, when I looked at it closely, I could have sworn I saw a huge scratch on his eye. So I quickly called the doctor, only to discover they close at 4:30, not 5:00 like I thought. Ugh! So now the decision had to be made whether to take him to the ER or not. I called Steve and he thought that we probably should, just in case it was really bad and he needed something done now. I get him to the ER and they look at me like I'm insane (never mind that I rarely take my kids in if I don't have to). The nurse asked who our family doctor was, then informed me he was on call. I said "Good!" a little too enthusiastically apparently because she got VERY upset with me. You have to understand, we have three doctors in town. One we used to go to and she isn't all that bright and usually I became her therapist when we went. The other is an imbecile and doesn't barely understand English and is 100 years old and should retire. Then their is our doctor, who is VERY good and we are really lucky to have a doctor like him in a town our size. So, of course, I was very glad that he was on call. She looked at me and said "If it is really an emergency, you wouldn't care who was on call." To which I replied, "which is exactly why we are here...I had no idea who was on call and I am just concerned about my baby." The other nurse, who is a sweetheart, said to me "It's just a bonus when your own doctor is on call." Precisely....and the others are idiots. Well, he came in and didn't see anything in Noah's eye and said it was pink eye. Didn't I feel like a jackass for taking him into the ER for pink eye! None of my kids have ever had it so I really didn't think that was the problem.

We got home and had Austin's choice of dinner (chicken Parmesan), so at least it wasn't a total loss. We didn't even get to eat until 8 pm, but at least the babies were down, so we didn't have to worry about that. I feel bad that he got put on the back burner on his birthday of all days.

Happy Birthday Austin....we love you!!!