Ranting and raving...but mostly ranting
Posted by Ryan Woods
We left for the ER at 12:45 AM. We left the ER at 6:05 AM after having our boy's temperature taken four times, a piss bag put on his wiener an hour after we were admitted (and about ten minutes after he had gone peepee), his arm poked and prodded and tortured, and a whole lot o nuthin'. Eventually we asked to speak to our doc so that we could try to go home. His reply was "Well, we haven't really done anything yet." and we said "EXACTLY!". He had an appointment at 10 am (in aprox 4 hours) with hid pediatrician and we trusted their competence much more than the ignorant ER staff.
Here are some of my thoughts concerning the ER staff of last night/this morning:
- It took over two and a half hours just to get admitted. I am forgiving though, they can't control when there are emergencies and how long it takes to help their patients. Though it was shocking that in those two plus hours only two other people were admitted before us!
- Whats up with all the pride associated with drawing blood/giving an IV? Every nurse or phlebotomist has this chip on their shoulder about how they can and will get some blood out of that boy. We try and try to communicate that his arms are very uncooperative, but that only feeds the fire of their egos. They then have an internal need to succeed...and so they stab and poke and prod my sons spirit away. Poor kid. Finally my wife and I had to tell them to stop and to leave him alone...but they didn't...so we told them to stop...we said that we were done trying to get blood...so they stopped. They didn't want to, but they did. You see, if they could just try one more time, or if he would just hold more still, or if he was just more hydrated, or if, if, if, if...it's ok, y'all failed at drawing blood. Leave the boy alone!
- Here are some quotes from the staff: "Oh, mommy, here's how your supposed to give your baby medicine" (thats when she proceeds to grab my boy from my wifes arms...the same wife whose been giving him tylenol since he was two weeks old) "How many days has he had a fever? Three huh?...ok, so he's had a fever for two days? Oh, it's been three? Ok...Now how many days has it been since he's been running a fever? Three? Really, thats a long time to have a high fever. I better find a pediatrician" (duh) "Ok, I'm going to draw some blood from your son. Whats that? He's hard to hold down when drawing blood? Oh, I can handle the kids. It's you parents that get in the way" (thanks). "Is he nursing right now? Yes? Well why don't we go ahead and give him his chest x-ray. We'll be real quick and it won't bother him a bit. x-rays are quick and easy" (liar. We've done this twice before. What they do, is they strap the child to a board with his arms tied above his head. They then stand him up inside a plastic tube and swivel him around like he's on display at some sadistic trade show. All the while he screams and chokes and throws up on himself.)
- The doctor took a peak at 4am. We didn't see him again until we demanded to speak with him at 6am...we just sat there waiting...
I'm tired. My son has a great pediatrician. He only has the flu. The ER sucks, but thats life I guess. Some days are like that...even in Australia
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