1st Visit to the Emergency Room

I was about to start a project meeting at work when I got a call from your daycare that you had a fever of 102 and needed to be picked up. I knew immediately that it must be another ear infection since you had been suffering from them since you were six months old. Your dad and I kept trying to hold off on the surgery for ear tubes, hoping that you would outgrow the infections and rendering the surgery unnecessary. But it seemed like every time you finished your antibiotics for one ear infection, a week later you would come down with another.

I picked you up from Crème and we headed straight for the doctor’s office. Surprisingly, however, the doctor said you didn’t have an ear infection. You had some fluid in one ear, but she suspected you had a virus that was causing the fever. So I took you home, knowing that I would probably be back to the doctor with a full-blown infection within a day or two.

That evening, I noticed that your fever got worse. I put you to bed as normal, but I went up to check on you before going to bed myself. Your Dad was working late that night and on his way home. I used the ear thermometer and took your temperature, and I was shocked when I saw that your fever was 103.8! I got a little scared since I had given you Motrin just an hour earlier, so your fever shouldn’t have been that high.

I called your Dad and he suggested we give you Tylenol, but I was worried about over-medicating you. So I called your MeMe and she sounded worried that you might start seizing from the high temperature. Each time I checked on you in your crib, you were lying there so lethargic just staring up at the ceiling. I decided to call the doctor’s office, and I communicated your symptoms to the on-call nurse. By this time, your Dad was home and he noticed that you were breathing rapidly, almost 1 beat per second. So the nurse called the on-call doctor who promptly ordered us to take you to the Emergency Room. Hearing the urgency in her voice made me start crying, and I asked your Dad to give me a hug to comfort me. I knew you would be OK, but I was still worried.

We arrived at the Emergency Room around 10:45 P.M. They checked you in quickly and immediately gave you some Tylenol (your Dad was gloating since he had suggested that in the first place). But they were concerned about your rapid heart rate, so they did a chest x-ray and also administered an I.V. to take your blood. That was NOT a fun experience for you OR for me. They wrapped you up in a sheet like a mummy except for your right arm. Then I caressed you and sang to you while they held down your arm and took two vials of blood. Poor baby, you just cried and cried until they withdrew the needle.

When your tests came back, they revealed everything was normal. But the ER doctor gave us a stern look when we told her how many ear infections you had been struggling with. She checked your ears and sure enough, you had already developed another one. Right then and there, your Dad and I decided to schedule the ear tube surgery for you. We just felt so bad that you continued to be sick.

We were sent home with a prescription for another round of antibiotics. It was a relatively low-stress visit to the ER when you consider that there could be many more trips worse than that in our future (you are a boy, after all!)