Another night in the E.R.

My ever-hypochondriac son required another trip to the E.R. last night. All is fine. Really, just having the doctors tell him everything looks great relieves the worry. Worry that sends him into a near panic.

He and his big brother had been out on our boat earlier in the day. The boat is an 18’ bowrider. And we live on a busy recreational lake. Evidently, they were cruising along and came upon two wakes. Big Brother was turning the boat to ride the first wake gently, but in traveling the wake, the boat turned and they slammed down hard on the second. Ian said he’d been sitting up in the bow, kind of turned toward the center of the boat when it all happened. So, when they slammed down, he didn’t realize the extent of what happened at the time, but he felt like he’d been kicked in the head. It gave him a short-lived headache.

When they got the boat home at 3 pm, he noticed his left side was tight and he was experiencing intermittent sharp pains. Big Brother went on his way home and Ian vegged in the recliner for the rest of the afternoon. He’d mention the discomfort; cringe in pain when the sharp twinges occurred and asked me all about spleen injuries. He continued to rub his hands along his chest and ribs on his left hand side. He showed me where he was having pains, all up and down the left side of his chest. He got up to use the bathroom at 7pm, showing me, yet again, just where it hurt and was uncomfortable. I’d been cooking dinner which was ready to be eaten (but his father had forgotten to pick up his prescriptions and ran to the drug store to try to catch them before they closed.) And son comes out, very dramatic, “I just had the strangest experience… I am NOT kidding!”

Now, as I said before, he has always been somewhat of a hypochondriac and tends to worry too much about every ailment he has, but usually, it’s more of just a complaint or passing question about symptoms. However, this time, I could tell he was really concerned. “I’m not trying to be a baby! But I’ve just never had anything like that happen before!” He told me how he was using the bathroom, then all of a sudden got lightheaded, sweaty and nauseous. “And now my hearing is going… I’m going deaf!” As I watched the color drain from his face, he was still complaining he thought he was going to throw up. I quickly told him to get down on the floor; he complied. The puppy ran over because she thought she was getting a playmate and I swooped her up and put her in her crate. My son never lost consciousness. And the entire time, he was still very dramatic, trying to get me to believe that there was something very wrong going on.

I tried to put on a calm front (though if I stood still, I could feel my visible shaking) … he was already alarmed about the incident and my body language did not need to fuel his panic. As he lay on the floor, feet raised, he asked me if I knew what to do in case of shock. I asked him what I should do and he gave me instructions. He kept talking about how weird an experience it was as I quietly got the phone book out to call a phone nurse at the hospital.

“What did they say?” Still alert and talking. The “talking” part being a very good thing because on a typical day, he doesn’t do much of that.

“The nurse said that if I was concerned enough to call, I should just take you in.”

Dread crossed his face. This would not be the first time he’d been to the E.R. “Can you call {our neighbor who is a nurse} Maybe she can do a rib scan thing.”

So, I tried calling her, but she was at work. I assumed we would be preparing to go to the E.R. as soon as Doug got home. I began covering up our uneaten salads, getting Tupperware from the cabinets to package up our pasta and fresh garden vegetables. Still worried and feeling dizzy, my son remained on the floor in the center of my kitchen as I worked around him. Still chattering, I tried to ease his worries and dread by downplaying the upcoming trip to the E.R.. As soon as Doug got back home from the pharmacy, I informed him that we were headed for the hospital. “Do you want me to go with you?” he asked.

“Yes.” And I made him drive. Ian was still dizzy and uneasy walking out to the car. He used his father’s shoulders to brace himself. We got him tucked into the back seat, with a large bowl (just in case.) You wouldn’t believe the traffic at 7pm on a Sunday night in Denver, NC. Large, slow, heavy equipment on non-passable 2-lane roads; Fire engines, returning to their stations that need to block two-lane roads to back into their stations; people, finishing up their Sunday drives! As we neared the hospital, we neared a in intersection that had no other cars waiting and the light was yellow. We didn’t let up on the gas and passed through the intersection on an “orange”/red light. Yes, I know… shame on us. But really, there were no other vehicles at this particular intersection, so while it was illegal, we felt we needed to do it.

Into the E.R. driveway, we were greeted by a hospital E.R. hostess with a wheelchair. Quickly, I filled out the small slip of paper with some basic information. Complaint: Chest pain – left side, nausea, fainting. While there were about a dozen people in the waiting room, Ian was the second one back. A quick EKG to rule out heart problems, Ian then informed me it wasn’t his chest… it was more his upper abdomen. {shrug} When he was showing me where it hurt, it “looked” like his chest. And as he laid there on the stretcher, legs rapidly rocking, he begins to ponder his need for a psychiatrist, “I think I need some help.” “Why do I panic with every little ailment?” “I wish I was still little when I didn’t have worries like this.” With the last statement, I could no longer hold my tongue… “Honey, you’ve ALWAYS been like this. Even when you were little. Each week, at school when they would educate you about cancer, leukemia, diabetes, or whatever, you’d always come home from school, asking if you had the ailment-of-the-week.” He replied, “Maybe I’m just a worrier.” The results of the EKG were fine, but he still complained of being dizzy. So they took his blood pressure lying down, again sitting up and again, standing. Not much difference in any of the results, but they still got him a wheelchair to head back to the waiting room.

We waited for someone, we were told, to come get him for an x-ray. But an exam room opened up before the procedure; so, we were invited back to sit with him there. A nurse came in to take vitals and hook him up to a heart monitor machine. About 10 minutes later, a doctor came in. She ordered the x-ray and a CT scan. It was quite a while before anyone else came in. But when they did, it all happened at once! One brought the “contrast” for Ian to drink for the CT. A large container of what looked like lemonade. “Drink one cup of this every 15 minutes. You’ll need to drink all of this, so it’ll be an hour before your CT scan.” Just as he was lifting the first cup to his mouth, an escort came in to take him for his x-ray. She didn’t know if the “contrast” was going to be a problem for the x-ray, so she had to call to find out… no problem…So, he chugged down his first cup. “Ugh! Tastes like Thera-Flu.” The escort then needed a nurse to un-plug him from the heart monitor machine. As she stepped out to find a nurse, a male nurse walked in to start an IV and get blood samples. IV nurse asks escort, “Can I have just 3 minutes to do this?” Escort says yes. The CT nurse walks in and takes the rest of the “contrast” and informs Ian that the doctor only needs for him to drink the one cup. OK, that’s good. Ian informs IV nurse that he doesn’t do well with needles and blood and Doug and I try to distract Ian away from the IV insertion. Lucky us, (NOT,) the tube was defective and leaking. The IV nurse called for backup, “AMY?” Amy didn’t come. So, when Ian thought the IV nurse was done getting blood samples, he looked at his IV and saw the mess and the still leaking tube. As he previously promised the IV nurse, Ian got sick right there. All the contrast was now in a pink basin on Ian’s lap. Poor thing. The IV nurse was again, calling out for the other nurse but she didn’t hear him. So I stepped into the hall and called for her, “Amy? Is there a nurse named Amy out here?” Amy came to offer assistance, but not before she exchanged sarcastic banter with a deeply apologetic IV nurse. New IV in, the heart monitor un-plugged, Ian was ready to go with the escort in a wheelchair to get his CT and x-ray. The IV nurse returned to the room to clean up the sheets, clean everything down and re-make the stretcher. He apologized to us at least three times.

Twenty minutes later, Ian was returned to the room. He couldn’t believe it had been that long. I told him, “time flies when you’re having fun. Are you having fun?” “NO.” was his response. They had him drink just one more cup of “contrast” just before entering the CT. We watched the television in the room while we waited for the results. About another 20 minutes later, Ian was asking about using the bathroom. There had been mention of them needing a urine sample so we couldn’t let him go. I stepped out into the hallway to find out when they’d take the sample when I ran into the doctor. She said, “I was just headed your way.” I asked her about the need for the sample and she said everything looked good so they wouldn’t need one. {SIGH!!!} What a relief!!! We got to Ian’s room and she relayed the results to him, “Your blood work looks great. Your CT scan was beautiful. You were very still in there so we could see everything very clearly. There is nothing showing any damage to your spleen or liver. Your x-ray showed no damage to your spleen or ribs. You really dodged a bullet. It could have been so much worse. Probably what you experienced was just a …” blah, blah, blah… lots of medical terms that none of us understood, but we assumed it to mean that the toxins in his body got shaken up and just made him feel really rotten and sick. She wants him to take it easy for three days with no heavy work. Take some Tylenol for the pain and discomfort and if he gets to feeling worse, to call back in. All that said, Ian’s brain can quit worrying about a spleen injury, or broken ribs or whatever else he was thinking that was causing him such panic.

Our entire stay at the E.R. was 3 hours; we got home at 11:00.