Yet Another Emergency Room Visit

Yes, apparently we just can not seem to stay away from the local emergency room. It was Tru’s turn again. He began wheezing on Tuesday evening and I gave him a breathing treatment at home that night. On Wednesday morning he sounded better but had a low grade fever. By 3:30PM his school called and said he had a higher fever and was wheezing. I debated on whether to visit the emergency room or not. I even called a nurse line to discuss Tru’s symptoms. After discussing it with a nurse, and having recently discovered Tru’s heart ailment, I decided that it was better to have him checked out.

Having been down this road before I have learned that an emergency room visit is a minimum of five hours. So this time, I stopped at a local 7-Eleven for a quick, portable meal. We grabbed some juice, fruit, a lunchable for Lin-Ley and a turkey sandwich for myself. Tru did not have an appetite so the juice was the only thing he was interested in. I thought that if I were going to eat a sandwich from a 7-Eleven at least I would be at a hospital if it made me sick.

When we arrived at the hospital it was standing room only in the pediatric waiting room. I knew it was going to be a long night! When we went in to see the triage nurse I mentioned Tru’s recent heart diagnosis. Well those were magic words because they found Tru a room within 20 minutes. He began receiving breathing treatments and they tested him for strep throat, the flu and RSV. All tests came back negative. They eventually gave him some oral steroids to help his breathing.

After being in the emergency room for almost seven hours the doctors were still not happy with Tru’s breathing and they told me they were going to admit him over night. I was shocked! So we (Tru, Lin-Ley and I) made ourselves comfortable in a pediatric room for the night. Technically Lin-Ley was the only comfortable person in the room as she was stretched out on a love seat and slept soundly. Tru had one of those steel cribs and was very confused about his surroundings. And of course as always while in a hospital you can never really rest. They were coming in to give Tru’s breathing treatments every two hours.

At 2AM Thursday morning a male nurse came in to administer the treatment. Of course we were all sound asleep. But he came in as-loud-as-you please with a cheerful, “Good morning. How are you doing this morning?” What? Luckily Tru was still sleeping and continued to sleep through the treatment. Then… the nurse’s cell phone rang… and he answered it and had a conversation in our room (our room with peacefully, sleeping children)! I thought I was going to have to go “Nurse Tina” on him. (Inside joke. See the Little Brother Max blog for insight.) Somehow Tru slept through all of this which was amazing. As the nurse left the room he said (again very loudly), “I will see you again in two hours” and slammed the door. Well… guess who woke up screaming!!
So every two hours someone entered the room and Tru was miserable with a lack of sleep. Ditto! Finally at 9AM the doctor came in and released Tru with a prescription of oral steroids and continued breathing treatments at home.

While at the hospital the kids both received beautiful handmade blankets that were made by volunteers of the Project Linus organization. This organization provides “security” blankets to ill children. I think I will start a charitable organizations section to our blog. Project Linus will be the first addition.

On a lighter note, last Saturday we met up with Dwyndle (Dallas’ cousin) at the mall and had lunch together and a nice visit. He brought along his camera and got some great photos of the kids:

Tru enjoying lunch.

A great photo of Tru's smile . He recently learned how to say "cheese".

Lin-Ley and Uncle Dwyndle.

Lin-Ley told Dwyndle that she could not wait to take him to China. She often offers to take people to China as if she were an official tour guide.