Sudden Hospital Visit: What do you bring to make the time in emergency go smoothly?

We suspected Addie had gotten the cold that Evie had come home from preschool with.  My Mom reminded me “Welcome to the school years, where sickness has to be fought all the time”, indeed we have entered the battle against sickness that seems to rotate around school. Addie has had a cough for a few days, and had started to sound really raspy. The bigger issues though were that she was not keeping any feeds down, it didn’t matter if she was fed from a bottle or nursed, it came back up. The day before we battled to get two bottle feedings into her. Her number of diapers had also decreased. Our little girl was not well. 

Sunday, when Addie woke up in the early hours my Mommy gut kicked in, and I decided it was time to get her checked out. We debated if Jason should come, and dropping Evie off at my parents so that he could come. We ended up having Jason just stay home with Evie, and I took Addie by myself to the paediatric emergency.

While driving there I was praying that it would not be a long wait to have her seen by a doctor. We were able to go right in, and into a private room. The nurses that came and checked on Addie were incredible, making sure Addie was comfortable while they did all of their checks. Addie had a bit of a fever, so she was given Tylenol to help bring it back down. The nurses told me they though they heard a little something in her lungs, and that they wanted to doctor to check that. We did have to wait a bit to see the doctor because it had started to get busy in the paediatric emergency area. Thankfully, Addie napped while we waited. I had her swaddled up in her blanket I brought, and I turned on a white noise machine to tune out the noise of the hospital. She also finally consumed some bottle without having it all come back up. It took the time we were there, but she finally had 6oz down. 

Now, the doctor originally said everything sounded fine and was going to send us home but after he left the room Addie started coughing and he came rushing back to check if the coughing was from her. He promptly ordered a chest x-ray. The x-ray was the saddest thing. In order to take the x-ray they tech had Addie’s arm up over her head and held in place, she was also strapped down so she could not move around. Poor little love started crying right away, but stopped as soon as I was allowed to picked her up again, and wrap her in her blanket.

We were taken back to our room to wait for results. Her fever broke while we were waiting, and she ended up having another little nap. I am so thankful that I went with my mommy gut, and took Addie in. I am also thankful that the doctor heard her cough, and sent us to get her chest x-rayed. The x-ray showed that she has the start of pneumonia. I was given a prescription for medication to help clear it, and we were sent on our way.

Trust your mommy instincts! I have yet to have a moment where I am wrong. I so hope and pray that this will be the start of her getting better, and back to her happy, smiley self. It’s so hard seeing little ones not feeling well.

I did bring a few things with us to the hospital to help ensure our time there went smoothly. Here’s my list of what helped us during our short emergency visit.

• Blanket/Lovie: I grabbed my daughter’s linen blanket as we were rushing out the door, so glad I did! It was something familiar to her, and smelt like home. I was able to swaddle her in it, and get her to nap. Plus it was great to keep her warm because a lot of the time they needed her out of her pjs to do checks. With the blanket the nurses just moved corners of the blanket out of the way to do their checks.
• Teething Toy: I had two teething toys that I rotated between to keep her entertained. She was able to play with them, and chomp away. I cannot image what would have happened without them, she probably would have been a lot more grumpy while there.
• White Noise Machine: We use a white noise machine for nap time, and bed time. We always have a little travel one with us just in case it is needed. It made a huge difference in drowning out the noise in the hospital. Addie was able to relax, and go to sleep. I had a few staff members ask what it was, and make comment about how the hospital should have some available after seeing her drift off to sleep.
• Snacks and Drinks: In the craziness of getting out the door, I quickly grabbed an apple juice and some snacks for myself. I had not had breakfast, and was so thankful for these later. I couldn’t leave Addie, and had no one to watch her for me to go get food while there. Last thing we needed was for Mommy to be dwindling.
• Disposable Diapers: When we noticed Addie was not her usual self, my gut told me to switch her from cloth diapers to disposable. It made things easier for tracking output, and I didn’t have to worry about cloth needing to be dealt with.
• Bottles/Formula: With nursing and bottle feeding Addie, I switched her to bottles so I could see how much she was consuming during feeds. While at the hospital this helped the staff see her intake too. 

My only complaint, and what could use improvement at the hospital is how you pay for parking. You have to guesstimate how long you are going to be there. In my situation with Addie, I did not have anyone with me who could run out to add more parking time for me. There was also no pay by phone option at this hospital. This really needs to change, because the last thing I needed to be dealing with after time at the hospital was a parking ticket. Thankfully several friends did inform me to not worry, if this did happen I could dispute it, and it would be cancelled. Still though, the pay parking situation needs to change. Either to having the pay by phone option, or to paying when you leave after your time there.

I so hope we do not have to spend time at emergency again any time soon. This was enough for us. It’s hard to be there, but I am glad we had Addie in a place where they could check on her and confirm if something was not right. I’d rather have gone and been told I need not worry, than to have not taken her and had her start getting worse.