(no subject)
So I am (almost) fully recovered from my illness, but we had to spend all day yesterday taking Madeline to the hospital.
While my condition had improved enough to go to work on Wednesday and Thursday, Maddie became increasingly worse. She seemed in more discomfort, slept a lot more than normal or than she had been doing, and would occasionally wake long enough for a tiny sip of water. Or she'd wake up and be screaming for half and hour or so and then fall back asleep.
We scheduled an early morning visit to the doctor, who thought she just had a bad case of the flu, and sent her home with a recommendation of drinking more fluids and more baby for children. This helped very briefly, but then she lapsed back into her coma like state from the previous couple days. We called the doctor back and he said to take her to Children's Hospital. They are, like, specialists in treating one year olds after all.
The trip to the emergency room took like forty five minutes to an hour (or about half an hour longer than it should have) due to an accident in Oakland that blocked the off ramp from 376. This made Maddie unhappy, and didn't cheer Amber or I up much either. It was around this time that Amber realized she hadn't eaten anything all morning, and I had only had a small snack while Maddie slept on my chest. We wanted to get Maddie to the hospital, though, so no stopping for food on the way.
I guess we were relatively low priority in the emergency room, as between arriving there and actually seeing a doctor was something like two hours. We did see a few nurses and technicians who took Maddie's vitals and asked the same questions repeatedly. And we saw a variety of waiting rooms. Maddie decided to be more aware and active in the waiting rooms thn she had been all week, which made it seem like our trip might have been pointless. But it was more about her being interested in exploring a new place and less about her actually feeling better.
Amber decided to venture into Oakland to acquire us both some food and some cold medicine for me, to combat the lingering effects of my cold. Of course, that meant that we were taken to an actual hospital bed for treatment shortly after Amber left. And that the area we were taken to was festooned with signs prohibiting eating, drinking or using cell phones (the best way for Amber to locate madeline and myself). It later turned out that no one seemed to care about these violations of the rules.
Eventually, a physician's assistant student looked at Maddie and got a genuine doctor to look at her. And we had to go get a chest X-Ray, which was horrible for Maddie as I had to hold her down while strange people used big weird machines on her. Only one parent was allowed to go in with Maddie, and I was chosen on the spur of the moment, as I was already holding Maddie. Later we were happy that my pregnant wife hadn't volunteered, because, you know, pregnant.
The doctor's conclusion the conclusion was dehydration and pneumonia were the problems. So she had to get an IV drip and a breathing treatment.
While waiting for these, I thought about how much harder it is to treat a one year old than an adult, as you can't tell them to sit still and not pull a needle, IV or monitor wire out of their arm.
The IV actually wasn't a big problem, as they wrapped her arm very tightly in gauze and bandages and plastic cups and things. The breathing treatment was more of an issue, as it was just a tube that was shooting out a fog of medicine that needed directed at Maddie's mouth and nose. She hated this thing at first, and did her best to point her face away from it. Eventually, her exhaustion overcame her and she fell into a belated nap, and thefore it was easier to get the tube pointed at her and such. She still needed to sleep on someone's shoulder, though, which became increasingly uncomfortable and such.
During all this, Amber and I snuck little nibbles of our food, but still weren't great. Neither had slept much the previous night, and the one meal we had spread across the entire day wasn't really sufficient. My lingering cold symptoms didn't help much, either. Amber and I tried to keep each other entertained with some conversation, and I tried to read my current book but the aforementioned discomforts limited my reading ability.
After what seemed like an eternity of time and a number of times telling people that we didn't have the prescribed medicine yet, we were allowed to go home. This was after about seven hours in the hospital, and twelve hours after the first doctor's appointment. We limped home, and Maddie immediately collapsed into bed. Amber and I followed her fairly shortly afterwards.
Maddie is reportedly doing much better today. I don't know: I've been at work all morning. But Amber says she is alert and eating and taking her medicine.
While my condition had improved enough to go to work on Wednesday and Thursday, Maddie became increasingly worse. She seemed in more discomfort, slept a lot more than normal or than she had been doing, and would occasionally wake long enough for a tiny sip of water. Or she'd wake up and be screaming for half and hour or so and then fall back asleep.
We scheduled an early morning visit to the doctor, who thought she just had a bad case of the flu, and sent her home with a recommendation of drinking more fluids and more baby for children. This helped very briefly, but then she lapsed back into her coma like state from the previous couple days. We called the doctor back and he said to take her to Children's Hospital. They are, like, specialists in treating one year olds after all.
The trip to the emergency room took like forty five minutes to an hour (or about half an hour longer than it should have) due to an accident in Oakland that blocked the off ramp from 376. This made Maddie unhappy, and didn't cheer Amber or I up much either. It was around this time that Amber realized she hadn't eaten anything all morning, and I had only had a small snack while Maddie slept on my chest. We wanted to get Maddie to the hospital, though, so no stopping for food on the way.
I guess we were relatively low priority in the emergency room, as between arriving there and actually seeing a doctor was something like two hours. We did see a few nurses and technicians who took Maddie's vitals and asked the same questions repeatedly. And we saw a variety of waiting rooms. Maddie decided to be more aware and active in the waiting rooms thn she had been all week, which made it seem like our trip might have been pointless. But it was more about her being interested in exploring a new place and less about her actually feeling better.
Amber decided to venture into Oakland to acquire us both some food and some cold medicine for me, to combat the lingering effects of my cold. Of course, that meant that we were taken to an actual hospital bed for treatment shortly after Amber left. And that the area we were taken to was festooned with signs prohibiting eating, drinking or using cell phones (the best way for Amber to locate madeline and myself). It later turned out that no one seemed to care about these violations of the rules.
Eventually, a physician's assistant student looked at Maddie and got a genuine doctor to look at her. And we had to go get a chest X-Ray, which was horrible for Maddie as I had to hold her down while strange people used big weird machines on her. Only one parent was allowed to go in with Maddie, and I was chosen on the spur of the moment, as I was already holding Maddie. Later we were happy that my pregnant wife hadn't volunteered, because, you know, pregnant.
The doctor's conclusion the conclusion was dehydration and pneumonia were the problems. So she had to get an IV drip and a breathing treatment.
While waiting for these, I thought about how much harder it is to treat a one year old than an adult, as you can't tell them to sit still and not pull a needle, IV or monitor wire out of their arm.
The IV actually wasn't a big problem, as they wrapped her arm very tightly in gauze and bandages and plastic cups and things. The breathing treatment was more of an issue, as it was just a tube that was shooting out a fog of medicine that needed directed at Maddie's mouth and nose. She hated this thing at first, and did her best to point her face away from it. Eventually, her exhaustion overcame her and she fell into a belated nap, and thefore it was easier to get the tube pointed at her and such. She still needed to sleep on someone's shoulder, though, which became increasingly uncomfortable and such.
During all this, Amber and I snuck little nibbles of our food, but still weren't great. Neither had slept much the previous night, and the one meal we had spread across the entire day wasn't really sufficient. My lingering cold symptoms didn't help much, either. Amber and I tried to keep each other entertained with some conversation, and I tried to read my current book but the aforementioned discomforts limited my reading ability.
After what seemed like an eternity of time and a number of times telling people that we didn't have the prescribed medicine yet, we were allowed to go home. This was after about seven hours in the hospital, and twelve hours after the first doctor's appointment. We limped home, and Maddie immediately collapsed into bed. Amber and I followed her fairly shortly afterwards.
Maddie is reportedly doing much better today. I don't know: I've been at work all morning. But Amber says she is alert and eating and taking her medicine.