Flashback #3 - False Alarms

 When Elijah was born, he had a rough start.  After one night at home, we headed to Texas Children's Hospital - E wouldn't eat at all so he was dehydrated and jaundiced. We sat in the waiting room - forever - it was a Saturday and a football game was on.  I do remember that. We had to get him hydrated, and for some reason I can't recall now -  he had a spinal tap.  That was a memorable moment,

overly tired, scared and wrought with emotions with a baby only a few days old.  Not to mention the mastitis that was burning my chest.  After a few days stay at the Ronald McDonald House so we could be close to the NICU, we headed home.  He was fine - nothing dangerously wrong.

After a few months of babyhood, we encountered another problem. E wouldn't stop spitting up nor would he sleep (due to all the spitting up.)  We had every possible blanket and gadget propping his body up so he could sleep.  Most doctors passed us by because, well babies spit up a lot.  We were lucky that while at an appointment, he threw it all up just in time for our pediatrician to see it and finally believe us that this just wasn't normal.

One appointment, our doctor confronted us with the possibility that he could have cystic fibrosis - so off to the Texas Children's Hospital again to have him tested and take a sweat test.  That was fun. Again, praise God, he was fine, just some reflux that plagued him for a year and kept us running to the pharmacy for meds with a little added grape flavor.

Overall, we've been quite blessed. None of our children have broken bones, stitches, or been seriously sick.  That's probably why this past April when Elijah went to the doctor for a hurt leg and a lingering fever, we were a bit in shock as we were advised by a sweet, but very young pediatrician, to rush to Texas Children's for more screening - the fear this time - leukemia.

I wasn't in the car as Kenny took Elijah into town but I heard it was a lot of crying, a lot of fear.  We spent a good few hours sitting in the waiting room while a friend of ours, who is also a pediatrician, but not ours, stayed updated and calmly told us that sitting there is most likely a mistake.  His blood count levels were low but just not low enough to make sitting in a hospital necessary.  He didn't want to step on the toes of our doctor who was certainly trying to be safer than sorry but even I kind of put together that even if Elijah had leukemia, the results could wait until a planned appointment the next morning.  But, because we have a tendency to trust, our whole family waited and waited until the girls couldn't take it anymore. Kenny took them home and our friend Kendra stayed the night with them.  Elijah and I stayed there.

I had fantastic people watching moments while sitting on the floor at midnight in a busy waiting room with a fussy and feverish 10-year-old laying on my lap.  Sleep was next to impossible. We were pretty fed up with the whole experience and ready to leave when E's name was finally called.  I remember our doctor was odd, and reminded me of Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley, but he seemed to know what he was doing.  We (paid for) the mandatory testing and x-rays all along believing and Squiggy basically telling us, it's probably just a virus.  And it was.  And sometime around 3am, Elijah finally came home to sleep off this random false alarm.


I'm grateful it was just a false alarm.  I know other parents who haven't been so lucky so I shouldn't be complaining.  But if I'd listened to our friend, and listened to my gut, I would have saved our family a harrowing night and a spectacular $2500 tab.  If I had to do it over, yeah, I'd probably still listen to that young pediatrician and his conservative "better safe then sorry" actions. I mean who wants to be the parent who ignored the doctor's orders, but geesh, come on, young Mr. doctor - if it's truly not an emergency and can wait until the morning, for goodness sakes, don't freak out a family, or at least not our family.  I can do people watching some other day.