Friday, May 09, 2008

DeVos Children's Hospital, Part Two

11:30 pm last night, I was packing up a few orders, and heard Bryce coughing quite a bit upstairs. He was so miserable looking that I called the nurse after hours line.

Paraphrased--
Me: Hello, my son is one month old and coughing, and in a lot of discomfort, I am just calling to make sure I can give him Tylenol?
Nurse: What are the symptoms?
Me: Rattly lungs, difficulty breathing right after he coughs, rapid breaths every once in a while, wheezing
Nurse: Well, when they are this young, we like to look at them right away.
Me: OK, so I will go in tomorrow to see my Doctor
Nurse: No, babies this young do not get colds, so you need to go into Devos Emergency right away, as it is probably not a cold. We like to check them out and make sure there are no other respiratory problems.

I went upstairs to tell Josh, who looked at me like a crazy lady that I wanted to trudge downtown at 11:30 pm. He reasoned that I probably would not sleep anyway if we stayed home, so in the car we went to probably one of the dirtiest emergency rooms ever. While Bryce was in triage, I noticed some other child's poop on the stained sheet. Clean, huh?

I have to admit leaving two and a half hours later with the diagnosis of a common cold made me feel like a naive, first-time mother.

1 comment:

Nicole said...

Oh my goodness!! It doesnt matter how many kids you have you, the difficulty breathing thing is majorly scary...I wouldve done the same thing.

When I had Austin, I had a super huge room...but imagine the look on Brents face when he pulled up a stool and it was covered in dried, smeared blood...upon further inspection, it was on the countertops and wall, too. Dirty, much?...oh yes.