Fire!

Troy has had a fever since Monday evening, so I’ve been keeping him home this week with me. At night, he’s been sleeping with my wife in the “big bed,” so she can monitor him during the night. Last night, he was restless and moving around, so my wife woke up to check on him and readjust his blanket. When she touched him, he was on fire.

She immediately woke up and took his temperature, and it was 103 degrees. I went in there when I heard the commotion, and we managed to get some Tylenol into him. Then, we all bundled up and headed to the emergency room. Thankfully, by the time we got there, Troy’s temperature was back to normal, and he was in better spirits, looking around and taking everything in.

We sat down with the 20 or so other families to wait, most of whom were there for the exact same reason. After about an hour, one woman got up to complain to the nurse’s station about having been there seven hours already, and the dread crept over me. I told my wife that we should be prepared for a long night, because we weren’t going to be a high priority, especially since Troy’s temperature was normal again.

After another hour, I heard the nurse tell someone that it about an eight-hour wait time. It was two o’clock in the morning by this point, so a night with sleep was out of the question. Other people that had been there longer than us were also getting frustrated and had started to leave. I mean it’s ridiculous that hospitals can’t arrange enough staff to treat people faster than eight hours.

You know how In the movies and TV that someone walks into an emergency room and gets treated immediately? Yeah, that does not mirror reality. But I guess it wouldn’t make for good entertainment if the audience had to sit there for eight hours for the star to get seen.

So, after two hours of sitting there and seeing only one family get called back, we left. Troy’s temperature was still doing okay, and he looked more exhausted than anything. So, we felt he’d do better with a little sleep than sitting at the hospital. He fell asleep in the car, so I guess we were right.

I’d like to say the rest of the night…er, morning…passed peacefully, but it didn’t. Around 4 o’clock, Troy started choking on all of the snot running down his throat, which made him start crying. The more he cried, the more snot came, the less he could breathe. We spent the next hour trying to calm him down. By the time I was able to fall asleep again, I got about two hours of rest before I had to be up for work. Unfortunately, I had to deal with a “high priority” escalation, so I couldn’t take the day off.

We were able to get Troy into his pediatrician at 10:30 this morning. So ironically, at about the exact same time that we would have finally made it back to a room at the hospital, we were seeing his doctor. And we’d gotten to spend the night at home. Plus, we saw the doctor right away, whereas at the hospital, we would have had to sit in the room for at least another half an hour before someone came to check us out.

All that to find out that Troy had a virus. No strep, no infection. And there’s nothing we can do but keep him comfortable. Luckily, he’s had no fever since last night, so we’re praying that he’s past the worst of it now.