Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Our night in the ER

When I opened the car door yesterday afternoon, Abby walked toward it at the same time and bumped her head. Once I got her calmed down, she was fine the rest of the day. She only has a small bump and a scratch; she's definitely had worse. We got her to bed like normal, and I left to run a couple errands. Damon called me later and told me to come home now. The worst thing you want to hear when you're out! When I got there, she'd stopped screaming and was sitting next to Damon on the couch drinking milk. She started up again when she saw me, though. She was burning up, and acting weird. Very limp and sort of drunk. Damon told me he heard her whimpering, so he went in to check on her, and she barely acknowledged he was there. He lifted her arm and it just fell limp, but he thought she was probably half-asleep. He stayed until she fell asleep (which is strange for her because she can't have an audience), but she suddenly started screaming about 20 minutes later. She was completely unconsolable and weird. When I got there, I went straight into "Mom Mode." I gave her some Tylenol and stripped off her sweatshirt and put her in a t-shirt. Since she'd hit her head earlier and she was acting strange, we decided to head straight to our doctor's Urgent Care. The pediatrician had just left, but they talked to him on the phone. The nurse told us he said she was going to need a CT scan, so we'd have to take her to the ER. WHAT?!?! This is when I started to panic.

At the ER, they checked her vitals (whle she screamed the whole time), and the doctor there said she would definitely need a CT scan to be on the safe side. The nurse came in and gave her a shot to sedate her, and we waited for it take effect. It never did. She got a little stoned, but never fully sedated. The doctor finally said to just go ahead and take her into the scan. She sobered up quickly when they put her in the machine! That was the hardest thing ever to watch. We could only see the very end of the machine, but we could hear her screams and several nurses come in to try to hold her down. It was horrible! They managed to get a couple images, so we hoped they would be clear enough that we wouldn't have to try again. Luckily, one was, and the doctor said she was fine, so finally got to go home after midnight.

The thing is that Abby's teething too. She's cutting a bunch of molars and canines at the same time. If she hadn't hit her head and acting weird last night, we would have figured it was from teething, given her Tylenol and did our best to make her comfortable. It was the other stuff that had us running to Urgent Care. She woke up this morning with a fever but definitely alert, so I gave her some more Tylenol and we laid on the couch together. Abby doesn't usually sit in one spot for more than a minute, so I knew she wasn't feeling well when she wanted to cuddle with me on the couch. About an hour after she woke up, she even fell asleep next to me! She's doing much better now. Still a little warm, but running around like normal. Damon stayed home with us today. I think he needed that reassurance that she's ok; he needed to see it for himself and be here for her. They're now taking a nap together in our bed.

2 comments:

Maureen said...

There is nothing scarier than not knowing what is wrong with your child! I'm glad she is okay. Did they give you any explanation for why she was acting unusual besides teething?

Unknown said...

No, they couldn't tell if it was teething-related or bump-related. I just spoke with a nurse at her pediatrician's office (the er told us to follow up with them), and she thought it sounded like she's either coming down with something or it's from teething. She didn't think it was from the bump. She did say that fevers associated with teething don't usually go over 100. She was 99.8 at the er, but she was already feeling much cooler than she had at home. I'm wondering if her behavior wasn't due to the fever. She's been hot all day today, so she's spent a lot of time resting on the couch and napping. She's been so clingy, but she's definitely back to her alert self.