Isn’t it? You can be having a grand old time and then something little happens and it’s all you can focus on.
As some of you know, this weekend, we had to cut our New Year’s trip to Lutsen short and hightail it (as much as one can hightail it in whiteout snow conditions) 240 miles back to Saint Paul to get Elijah to the emergency room.
He started off the Christmas holidays with a horrible case of pink eye. That was followed by a double ear infection and a 10-day course of antibiotics. He was on his last day of antibiotics in Lutsen when he suddenly spiked a fever. Ummm, not supposed to happen. In addition, his chest had been very rattle-y and wheeze-y sounding and we kept giving him nebulizers and noticing more and more that they weren’t doing a thing.
Finally, this asthmatic mom (and her non-asthmatic husband) thought, this is no longer okay, and we called the doc. He said, “Sorry to cut your trip short, but you need to get him home.”
So we drove through horrific driving conditions and got back to the Cities in about 6 hours (instead of the usual 4). We pulled into the garage, I grabbed Eli in his carseat, a pack of diapers and our diaper bag and moved over to Brian’s car and backed out to head to the ER.
We got there and they got us right in. Right as we came into our room Eli promptly threw up all over me. Did I mention that I had his diaper bag, diapers and that’s it? Didn’t really bring any clothes for me. The nurse gave me a towel. Ten minutes later, he threw up on me again. Another towel. And 20 minutes later…yes, you guessed it. I was pretty much a walking toilet at this point.
They nebbed him three times, tested him for RSV ad influenza and did and x-ray. And pneumonia it was. As he was a preemie, they were understandably more concerned about breathing problems than one already would be in an infant. So they admitted him.
All of the doctors, nurses, admitting team, etc. were great. They oooohed and ahhhed over how cute they thought Eli was. Commented over and over how they couldn’t believe what a good, patient baby he was. And then would say again they thought he was adorable.
Remember me over here? Yeah…the mom. The not very cute, very smelly one. The one who looks like a walking puke display. Yes, I spared your floor, but not my shirt.
By the time we were in the room, done with doctors and ready for bed it was 2 a.m. and Eli, wired on meds had no interest in sleeping. We were up until 4 and got to sleep until 5:30 a.m.
I woke up, in the clothes I had been wearing for 24 hours, stinking like you can’t believe, and starving. And it was silly. Cause while he had great care, I just kept focusing on the fact that I would have killed to have a scrub shirt to wear for the day and that I had no idea how I was going to get any food.
Eli had great care all that day. They even got him clean clothes to wear and a bath. And we were sent home that night. Me, still wearing my nasty shirt. Hungry having snarfed down a quick sandwich at 2 p.m. And desperate for a shower.
Like I said, the little things. Pretty good experience for Eli in the hospital. Less so for his stinky mom. We both thought it was very good to be home.
