I wish I was in a better mood, a joke telling mood. Normally I think I'm pretty funny. I can find humor in most situations. Right now I'm sitting in and ER with my middle kid. I don't think he is sick enough to justify a visit to the ER, but I couldn't take the moaning any more. It was more about my own self preservation than his illness. I know he's dehydrated and he won't drink so we're cheating and getting IV fluids. Because the resident found out my husband and I are teaching faculty my kid is getting the blood work they wouldn't normally get. I don't think it's necessary and they don't either but lots of times what dictates our actions in medicine is not what we think it is, but what we think it isn't. This is mostly so no one can turn around and claim we missed something. No one wants to miss a diagnosis on an attending's kid. Honestly, the moaning stopped as soon as we walked into the ER. "I'm in the hospital. I don't want to seem like I'm sick." he says. Really, we are in the emergency room. This is exactly the location you should be in if you're sick. Better to moan here than at home. Regardless, here we sit awaiting our thousand dollar work up to tell us what we already know; he has a viral infection and he's dehydrated. I do find solace in the other 80% of the families here who also have no business being in an emergency room. But it's probably worse that I'm a doctor. I should know better. I should be in an urgent care center and I thought this children's hospital had one, but they don't. So, I tried.
There weren't too many people here when we first arrived but they put us in a room with another family. It was a large family both in quality and quantity. Their noise level was out of proportion to the number present and it didn't help with the headache. My kid turned to me and said, "I hate them. I think they brought an entire continent with them." So I went and asked if they had a private room like I'm at the Ritz-Carlton or something. They obliged but I'm sure some snarky comments were made at my expense.
I told my kid that the triage medical tech had won the Miss Congeniality contest 3 years in a row. Normally people who work in a children's hospital are obnoxiously chipper but I get it; sick kids need distraction and ridiculously happy is distracting. This lady had the personality of the bottom of my shoe. I listened to the tech across the hall with envy. She was jokey and personable. Our lady seemed like she had suffered the effects of too much ECT. After triage where they took his vitals, they ushered us to some hard, plastic chairs where we sat till they called us to registration. "Would you like to pay your $100 co-pay?" I was asked. My own private thought bubble popped up and silently I said to myself, "No. Not really, but do I have a choice? It's either now or later." Then I handed over my already maxed out credit card.
After registration we sat in the lobby for a nanosecond. Just long enough for my kid to lie down and get comfortable and then get his name called again. At this point we were no longer audibly moaning in pain, but every little movement elicited grimaces (on the ride over he asked me to stop going over bumps b/c even riding in the car hurt. Since we live below sea level I could not accommodate his request). In the lobby I see lots of other kids who are playing on iPads and running around and looking too good to be here. Now we are just waiting, finally in our own, private, "suite" after completing the psychotic, virtual dot-to-dot ER process.
My other 2 kids have been left at home. This is okay with them because it means they can watch television for 8 hours straight with no one telling them to go do something productive. My daughter can watch YouTube video after YouTube video of teenaged girls singing the covers of sappy, Taylor Swift-esq love ballads and looking up decorating ideas for her room (because I am a sub-optimal designer in her eyes). And my oldest can play video games on his phone until his thumbs bleed. I've only gotten 2 phone calls from them and there was no panic on their end though they did express some concern regarding their brother's condition. "Overall his prognosis is good" I tell my daughter. "What does that mean?" she asks. "That he's gonna make it." Her response..."meh".
The sick kid is in heaven because he gets to watch Sponge Bob without having to compromise about the TV and he has a team of women waiting on him. I'm fighting off the final act of desperation...walking over to the McDonalds inside the hospital and getting him some curative french fries and myself a medium sized value meal...there is only so much Sponge Bob a grown woman can handle.
Well the resident is in here now and she's looking up his results (all normal) so I'd better go and act interested...
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