Early this morning my lovely 5.5 month old daughter looked at me and projectile vomited on me twice. While changing the sheets her majesty yakked again. By vomit #3 there was bile and I was frantically looking on the internet at webMD to determine how serious these events were. Serious for the clothes as I am sure bile stains - but more importantly were we off for our first ER visit?
While researching Ev yakked agin - very sad to see an infant throw up bile. Again and again and again. Trying to wade through the google hits was painful too - most of the articles that were found talked about vomiting in 5 month old dogs (dashuhounds seem to be especially prone - beware).
Finally decide to ditch the web search (somewhere between puke 5 & 6) and call the nurses line. I know what they are going to say even before the words leave their mouths. I have never called them and not had the same CYA response. You need to see a doctor within 12 hours or my personal favourite you need to go NOW.
So then the decision. My gut is saying BCCH because we have a history there and there is little chance of a drug addict walking into the waiting room asking for spare change. But it is 2:30am by this point and HWSNBN has voted for SMH. He toddles back to bed to wait for the call and I pack up the van with babe. Who has yakked again in her car seat.
The ER is surprisingly quiet. I thought that maybe with the stat some people would be tying one on. I was fully prepared to turn around and book to BCCH. We triaged and waited with 2 homeless people in the waiting room. One was passed out and the other commented how cute Ev was (she was sleeping). But the comment was followed by some high pitched preaching about God so all the warm fuzzies that I take from those compliments was washed away and replaced with a desire to sit as far away as possible.
Finally we are called back to the peds section of the ER. Admitted. Yakking ensues. More bile with time with foam. Nurse goes to tend to stupid 17 year old who doesn't want to sign consent to get her appendix taken out - even though she is becoming toxic. Almost removed her and signed the consent myself just to get closer to having a pediatricians attention. Stupid girl eventually concedes that she does not want to die in a cess pool of toxic shock and is wheeled away.
But then the nurse starts to comment that WADE the pediatrician has not been by her ward all shift (he didn't even come to see 'too stupid to live' again because he had seen her earlier in the day and she was now in the hands of the surgeon). So I slept in a chair with my head on Ev's crib mattress. For about 15 minutes before asthma baby started to wail. Again thought about removing him from his incompetent mother and placing with other care provider who would actually remember his nebulizer the next time they went to visit rellies with cats. Thankfully Ev slept for a few hours.
Mercifully WADE went off shift at 7am without showing his fizzog and Dr. Chung arrived and saved the day with some Gravol and a syringe of water. Nurse Courtney (no not my sister but another equally charming Courtney) administered first Gravol and syringed water. Babe slept. Took 3 ccs more of water without yakking. Sent home at 9am to sleep it off. Probably a stomach bug. Why couldn't WADE have taken the 10 minutes to to that at 4am??? If I ever find WADE I am going to make him scrub out bile stains from Ev's clothes until he cries.
So the morale of the story is - go to BCCH. Even if your kid only has an infected hangnail. Otherwise you could wait a whole shift for WADE to make an appearance. At least at BCCH you can wait in peace without hiding your purse and constantly worrying about the public toilet.
ACK! Now onto tackling the stains from last night.
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