Owen's First ER Visit

Well, let me start off by saying before hand that Owen is totally fine and healthy. This little incident happened on July 9th so don't be worried.

The title of this post is probably not completely correct as Owen went in the womb once to the ER as my pregnancy with him was causing a sever migrain and they wanted to make sure it wasn't something worse. So, technically this is Owen's second trip. I have false hope that this will be his last.

After this trip on our drive home I was telling Ryan how I felt while we were in there with future hypothetical visits flashing before my eyes. Owen is just that type of child. He acts on impulse and doesn't think of the consequences until it is far, far past due. He is our son who, when at the playground, attempts to run down the slide, until I catch his arm and pull him to his bum. This is our son, who runs down the incline handicap ramp at full speed, trips to the ground, hits his head, scraps his knees, lets out the smallest whine and gets back up and wants to try it again. This is our son who climbs from the chairs to the top of the table and tries to stand at 16 months old. Owen is our child that learned somehow to climb out of his crib at 16 months as well. Owen is pretty much just Owen and apparently not scared of a single thing except the vaccum cleaner and the toilet flushing. Someone needs to explain that to me, I don't quite get how potentially giving yourself a concusion isn't scarier than the noise of the toilet.

Oh, we just love our little Buddy and I can see each and everyday how he is going to give us a run for our money. I just think that it can't get worse, but I'm sure as other children come along they will teach us that we are most definitely wrong.

So, onto the original reasoning for this post. Owen is 100% BOY and we love him for that. His favorite words to say are BALL, CAR, and Cookah(cookie). If that doesn't describe a boy I don't know what does. Earlier in the week of July 9th Owen's right ear was a little more red than his left. I originally thought he had just got a bit of sunburn. As the days went on it got a little more red and a little puffy. I thought he had a little skin irritation at this point and really wasn't all that worried as when we touched it, he didn't seem to care and he never pulled at it or acted like anything was wrong. Well, on July 9th Owen woke up and his right ear was huge and bright red compared to his left.





I still wasn't that worried as I decided I would call the pediatrican and explain it to him and thought he would just tell me that it was some minor thing and how to treat it and we would be back to packing and getting ready to move(our moving truck was set to arrive this same day by the way).

Well, I was very wrong about that. The pediatrician as a bit concerned and told me to bring him in. So, I headed to the doctor with Owen while Ryan was packing things up at home. When we got there the doctor saw us like normal and everything seemed okay until he came in and said that Owen's ear condition might actually be very severe. There is a thing call mastoiditis which is the infection of a bone behind your ear. It is very rare but does most commonly occur in very small children with an ear infection that doesn't get better. The weird part is that Owen had no such ear infection. The doctor still said he had all the other signs and was concerned. He wanted Owen to get a CT scan of his ear. He tried to order it from the surrounding hospitals but those hospitals were not equipped for a 15 month old and they wouldn't be able to do it that day. I guess this mastoiditis is very fast growing and a long while ago used to be a leading cause in the deaths of infants( I didn't know this fact until after this whole ordeal was done as Ryan kept it from me, that was probably smart of him.) So, the doctor said we would have to go to primary children's in Salt Lake City which from where we were living was about and hour and 15 minutes. On top of that Owen couldn't eat or drink for at least 6 hours before the CT scan. And on top of that, they said they wouldn't schedule the CT scan until the next day as they had no openings, so we had to walk-in to the ER and do it that way so we could get one. The doctor also told me the 3 things that could happen. He said that it may not be very severe at all so they will just give him IV antibiotics and send him home to be monitored by his Pediatrician. He could be a little more severe and have to stay overnight on IV antibiotics. And, lastly he could be very severe and have to have surgery and stay in the hospitals for a week or so.

So, at this point I was pretty shaken up, but I will say I was proud of myself with Ryan not there at this point for staying put together and asking what needed to be asked and figuring out what needed to be done. I will admit I didn't stay that put together later in the day. So, we went back home to wait an hour or two before leaving for the ER. The doctor did tell us to do this since Owen can't have eaten for 6 hours before the scan, he told us there was no sense in getting there right away since we'd just have to wait there until his stomach was empty enough. We packed our stuff up and our bags incase we had to stay overnight. Ryan called the moving truck and arranged with his aunt and uncle for them to meet it since we most likely wouldn't be there. And, we set off on our trip to Salt Lake.

The doctor had also informed me that since it was Primary Children's that our insurance would cover it, but it turns out that the hospital was not affiliated with our insurance. But, luckily with our doctors note and the fact that the other hospitals couldn't do what needed to be done they did cover it, thank goodness!

Okay, so onto the REAL story. So, we arrived around 2-3 in the afternoon. When we got there Owen was still doing very well with not eating. We got called back fairly quickly, but as with all ER visits there were times we were waiting for awhile. We had multiple doctors look at Owen and we told them what our doctors in Provo had ordered. They decided to take some blood tests to see if that showed everything. They told us that if at all possible they didn't want to give Owen a CT scan due to the radiation exposure at such a young age. We were glad about that as long as they could diagnose Owen's problem without it.

So, they came in to give Owen an IV. This was the most horrible experience of our trip I think. Apparently, Children's Hospital ER needs to take a class on giving a 15month old an IV. They didn't give Owen anything and they had two nurses and Ryan and I hold him down. Then, they expected him not to fight it. They kept blaming him for moving and saying this never happens. All, I was thinking the whole time is are you serious? I don't know why they couldn't have numbed it at least or given him something to help. They had to try multiple times for minutes at a time to get it in. They tried 3 different veins which kept rolling so they were just digging in his arm for minutes at a time while Owen wailed and screamed, hoping they would hit a vein. I felt so bad for him. He just kept looking at Ryan and I like what are you letting them do to me. At one point Ryan had to leave due to some problems with the movers and I was sitting there forcing Owen to stay down crying along with him. I felt so helpless as to what I could do to take his pain go away. A few minutes after the third new poke and some digging they got it in, but keep in mind this was about 25 minutes after the start of the process. Owen was not happy. They took his blood and then we went to sit down and Owen feel fast asleep in my arms. This is not a common occurance for Owen unless he is absolutely exhausted, which he was after fighting the IV needle and being starved. So, after the IV was in and Owen was sleeping we looked at the blood test results with the doctors and they said that nothing was abnormal making them really think that it wasn't mastoiditis, like our doctor had thought. They said it could be a skin reaction, a bug bite, or something else that was unknown. They decided to give Owen antibiotics through the IV that would treat for mastoiditis and anyother infection it could be.




Owen's little IVed hand. He kept trying to take it off as well, when we was awake.



At this point Owen still hadn't eaten and he was starving. They finally let him have some water which he was so excited about. He drank almost my whole water bottle full. Then after the antibiotics they let him have some snacks, which he was so excited about. I actually felt really embarrassed and had to ask for some snacks too becuause I was feeling really nautious and sick at the time due to our new pregnancy. They kindly gave me some as well.


The nurse handed him this juice box and he ran right over and handed to Ryan to open.

He also got some milk, which is his favorite.

Here is another shot of his ear.

Running around with his juice box and with a smile on his face because he actually had something in his tummy again!

We had to make the decision whether to keep Owen over night to be checked in the morning or if we wanted to go home and see our Pediatricians office in the morning and if it hadn't gotten any better than we would have to come back for more testing. After talking it over for awhile we decided that we would go home and go to the doctors office in the morning and if Owen's ear wasn't down we would go back.

At this point we felt like things were going better and Owen was getting treated. They were ready to check us out but earlier we had noticed after Owen's little fight with the IV he was developing a rash from the stress of everything. This caused the nurses to want to check him again before leaving to make sure he wasn't having a reaction to the medicine so we had to stay longer. They had to give Owen some benedryl which made him tired again.

Then we were getting checked out again when they took Owen's IV bandage off and as they uncovered his hand it was huge. Due to the poor placement of IV some of the medicine had leaked into Owen's hand instead of into his vein. They had to stop the check out process again to get a doctor to look at it and make sure the meds wouldn't hurt his body because it wasn't in the vein. They finally decided it was okay and that is should go away in a few days. They gave us our check out papers which by the way said he was being diagnosed with mastoiditis since I guess they couldn't come up with anything else worth writing that he had and a perscription for meds.

So, now we are actually leaving the hospital and Owen has a rash from stress, three huge bruses on his arms and hands from IV attemps, one huge hand due to IV leakage, one swollen red ear from some unknown cause, and he was starved for now reason. He definitely looked worse when we left than when we got there. We stopped in the cafeteria to get him some milk and some food.

On our drive home he feel fast asleep and was totally exhausted. We arrived home to our huge moving truck and to an Owen who was just ready for some peace and quiet.

So, the next morning Owen gets up and we go in to see him. He is red and swollen all over except that his ear has gotten somewhat better. We took him in immediately to the pediatrician as we were supposed to and the doctor there said he had two different rashes now. He had the one that had started in the hospital from the stress and he now had another rash from an allergic reaction to the antibiotics given him. He had hives all over him, on his face, arms, legs, belly, you name it he had it. They were even in his diaper area. Luckily, they never went to his mouth or lips or we would have had to go back to the ER. So, now we had to continually give him his new oral antibiotic for his ear, benedryl for his allergic reaction, and rub anti-itch cream on him for his hives.






And, that is finally where our two days of hospital and doctors end. As Owen's ear got less and less swollen we saw some tiny marks on his ear that may have been a spider bite, but there is no way to ever know for sure. Owen looked horrible for a few days and I'm sure everyone thought he had some communicable disease. Luckily, he cleared up faster than he was supposed to, so by the time he and I flew to VA, he looked pretty normal, except for some brusing.

While, we were in the hospital I was thinking about others who have it so much worse than we did. Those who do find something terribly wrong with their child or themselves. Those who have to have very painful treatments. Those who basically live at the hospital for a time. And, those who don't make it out. Even though our experience wasn't very fun, it could have been much worse. I'm so grateful for the knowledge of Jesus Christ and that he suffered all our pains and made it possible so we can live with him again. And, I am so grateful that nothing worse was wrong with Owen and that he is healthy and well.