Emily went to the ER

 As these things do, this happened days before my mom was scheduled to return from her trip.

On Tuesday night, Emily went to bed early, feeling run down.  At 12:30 the next morning, she woke me up with a bloody nose.  She was losing a lot of blood, but we were attempting to get it to clot.  Then, she started complaining of acute stomach pain, radiating from her belly button.

So, I had to wake Billy, and he helped her with the nose bleed while I gathered things for our trip to the ER.

Luckily, before we loaded up, she was able to stop the nose bleed, so now we were only dealing with the tummy pain.  At the hospital, she was running a fever, so they gave her some Tylenol in triage to help bring down.

By the time we got a room, she was feeling better.

Feeling not good:

Feeling good*:

So, at this point she had no more pain, and no more nosebleed.  They tested her for Flu, and guess what... she had flu A!

They ran a few other tests to rule out appendicitis, but since the acute pain had subsided, they didn't order an image.

Checking the time, so see what show would be on next.

Finding out that cable is nothing like Netflix.

At around 5:30 she was finally discharged.  We stopped by Walgreens to pick up some Tylenol & Advil.

We got home sometime after 6, and I had to check out for at least a little while before taking the big kids in to school. Since she was not cleared to return to school until Monday, the two of us came home to sleep.  The twins were soooooooo good.  They had a second breakfast, then came up with us and quietly watched their tablets while I tried to recover some of my night's lost sleep.

Emily kept her fever under control with lots of medication the first few days, but we slowly tapered it off.  We had a low key weekend, and she was good to go Monday morning.

I'm so glad it wasn't anything more than the flu.  At least the flu went away.

later days

*yes, these were taken second apart.

William's Swollen Lymph Node

A week ago Thursday, when William climbed into the car, I could see his giant swollen lymph node in my rearview mirror.  I asked him if it hurt, and he said no, but after a google search of all the terrible things that it could be, I made him an appointment the next morning.  

The appointment wasn't until the afternoon, and when I went to pick him up from school, he wasn't in his classroom, and he wasn't in the office.  It turns out that he complained of pain while swallowing to his teacher just before I arrived and he was going to be checked out by the stand in nurse.

When we arrived at her office, he was extremely sedate and sat or laid each room we were moved to.  She tested him for strep, which came back positive, and he also had a touch of pneumonia, in the lower region of one of his lungs.

She prescribed him the 2nd tier of antibiotic, because she wanted to make sure he kicked the strep.  She had see more cases of pneumonia at her practice in the past three months, than in the past 5 years combined.   She said that he would probably crash, then slowly improve, as he coughed, but if he did not improve in 48 hours, not to wait for her and instead go to the urgent care.

The medicine itself wasn't bad and William had no trouble with it.  He did crash on Saturday, and slept somewhere around 16 hours.  On Sunday he seemed to have improved drastically, so we continued with our plan to celebrate daddy's birthday at chuck e cheese.

He started showing signs of slowing down, which was understandable considering all he was fighting, but in the car he fell asleep.  Billy and I discussed whether or not this merited a weekend  trip to the hospital.  When we came into the house, he curled up in the chair closest to the door, and fell asleep.  Ultimately, I ended up taking him to the urgent care, but they sent us along to the ER since they didn't have any imaging machines.

The wait in the lobby was almost two hours, then they gave him a room, but he wasn't allowed to eat.  They drew blood, and I gave a summary of his complex medical history, a few times.  The resident didn't correct me, but was surprised that I really meant hypophosphatasia and not hypophosphatemia.

He was still not allowed to eat, until they were certain that he wouldn't need an ultrasound.  The strep test came back negative (yay!) but he still had pneumonia in his lung.  He was finally cleared to eat, and then he slept.

As late as it was, I crawled in next to him, since he wasn't hooked up to anything.  He was sound asleep and I was almost asleep when they gave us the go ahead to leave.  They gave him the next tier antibiotic which we were able to procure from the 24-hour pharmacy in the lobby.

It is foul smelling, so after each dose (3x a day,) he gets some ice cream.  He stayed 'home' with me on Monday, and was able to rest some.  On Tuesday,  he went to school, happily, I did give his teacher the run down, and apologized, but my chaperone commitment fell at a poor time. = ( The ER doctor wanted us to follow up with his regular doctor on Tuesday,  so we made it happen.

He was still not himself, and was resting in the back of the classroom when I went to collect him.  The doctor was concerned and gave him a steroid, and prescription for an inhaler, but before we left their office (in a huge rush) he had a breathing treatment.  He thought the 'smoke' coming out of the sides of the mask was entertaining.

After 5 days on his newest meds, I'm pleased to report that today's follow up was wonderful.  She said his lungs sound much improved, and his energy level is rebounding quickly.

Thankful for good doctors and a healing little boy.  oh, and that my mom is back.  so.thankful.

later days

William goes to the ER, again.

William has been acting like he just cannot burn his energy fast enough.  He bounces around, and up, and down, and back and forth.  For weeks I've been warning him not to get hurt, since we had a school spirit night on the calendar at the skating rink.

He did well, and it was the day of, when the school called.  He'd fallen on some playground equipment, spent time in the office being monitored, and then was sent back to class.  When I picked him up at the end of the day, he was my normal, bouncy boy.

At home, after homework, all 5 were wound up so tight in anticipation of skating.  Then, the inevitable happened.  He and Alice were roughhousing in the living room, and he hit his head again.  

This time his body was not nearly as forgiving.  He was acting tired, but roused himself to get in the car for the party, but when he threw up in the car, we knew it was time to take him in.

So, while Billy took the girls skating, William and I hung out in the waiting room.  He was smiling not long after we arrived, ate most of the sandwich I'd brought for dinner (since we were supposed to eat pizza at the party) and had returned to his normal self.

After triage measured him, and updated his file, we were sent back to the waiting room.  Not long after, they sent us back for his CT Scan.  He did really well laying still, considering he was completely conscious.

We were sent back to the waiting area a third time, and when we were called back, we ended up in the exact same room as last year.

The doctor & nurses came through. Once the results of the scan came back, they indicated that it may be a mild concussion at most, but we were free to go.  He needed to take it easy over the weekend, so he had an extra day off on Friday.

I'm so thankful that he was less severe than last year, but next autumn he might be wearing a helmet leading up to the first skate night.

later days