The Saga Continues

After my aforementioned day in the ER, we were looking forward to a productive Saturday out in nice weather.

Again the universe said: Psych!

We put Lil’ Drummer (who had been in completely good health—no cold symptoms or what not) down for his morning nap, and anticipated that when he woke up, we’d hit the road to run a long list of errands. He woke up early from his nap, but didn’t seem too out of sorts initially. Rockstar took him downstairs so I could finish getting ready, but I soon heard him crying. A lot.


**back to his chill self**


I walked downstairs to see what was going on. Initially, I was annoyed, thinking, ‘why aren’t you helping this poor kid who is obviously in distress?’ Except when I got down there, I saw that Rockstar was holding Lil’ Drummer, trying to give him a pacifier, but nothing doing.

Huh. Drummer is a pretty chill little guy. He gets fussy at all the normal baby things (Hungry! Tired! Dirty diaper!), but otherwise, can generally be talked out of crying spells. So it struck me as odd right away. I reached for him, assuming the crying would cease as soon as he was wrapped in mama’s arms. But, you know, it didn’t.

I should note: There is a difference between normal baby crying and panicked, red in the face, high-pitched screaming. This was the latter.

And nothing made it go away. We tried getting him in his carseat and on the road, because he generally responds well to being on the go. Nope.


**on the go**


We tried walking him outside in the wind. It helped only a little.

We tried feeding him—he wouldn’t have any of it. He wouldn’t nurse, he wouldn’t eat, he wouldn’t take his paci.

We tried changing him, rocking him, distracting him. We tried Motrin. We tried Tylenol. N.O.T.H.I.N.G. worked. After my own ordeal the day before, my nerves were already shot. So Rockstar and I were on edge. There was no way on God’s green earth that I was going back to the ER unless I really had to, but I was starting to get nervous.

Being a mom and doctor can be a double edged sword when it comes to taking care of your own kids. Even though I think on the whole it is helpful, there are times when your mind takes you to the worst case scenario, because you’ve seen it. So my mind was thinking of intussuception (an uncommon, but serious bowel problem that inconsolable crying can be a sign of), since he’d demonstrated no other sick symptoms that would indicate an ear infection, hand/foot/mouth, or some other virus. And at a certain point, you want a third party to come in and look at the situation, since your intense motherly concern can make it hard to be objective.

So, we scheduled a visit with the pediatrician, who mercifully still had Saturday afternoon appointments available.


**this week finally brought a chance to go exploring**

We loaded both kids in the car (because neither of us wanted to go it alone) and made our way there.

Within 10 minutes of walking the hallways outside the pediatrician’s office, Drummer’s hours of crying had softened into whimpers, and then into silence. Oh, blessed silence.

By the time we saw the doctor, he had decided he was willing to eat, and looked the part of a normal, healthy baby. Do you ever feel going to the doctor is like taking your car to the mechanic? The car never makes that weird sound you ‘swear it’s been making’ when the professional is listening.

I told the doc his symptoms, and he agreed that intussuception had to be considered, but set about examining him for other problems.

His exam was entirely normal. He advised me to head to the ER if he had 2 or more uncontrolled crying episodes.

We have both been fine ever since.

Can I just say: Dude, we are so over the mystery syndromes round these parts.


**enjoying open spaces**


p.s. A few people have asked if I think mine and drummer’s episodes were related. The timing was awfully strange, but there were no symptoms to indicate either of us had anything infectious. I’m still thinking mine might have been related to some type of small abdominal wall hernia that went back into place before it was imaged, and I don’t know what was going on with my little man.

I guess this drives home the point that medicine is not an exact science. There will be questions that we will never be able to answer, despite our best efforts. Frustrating and Humbling? You better believe it. But I'm learning that life is more about the process than the definitive solutions and answers we crave.

Being the Patient

Speaking of wanderlust, this last weekend held some pretty great possibilities. My wonderful mother is in town, and so we had discussed taking some day trips on Friday and Saturday. But sometimes life needs to remind us that things don’t always go as planned. I’d had an inkling that something would interrupt our plans.

Friday morning I woke up with a few mild stomach pains. “Hmm…that’s odd,” I thought. In absence of other symptoms to indicate infection, I brushed them off. An hour later, the pain had progressed. Soon, I was in tears and Rockstar had decided to cancel his meetings. He encouraged me to let him take me to the ER.

“No! They’re just going to give me a CT and I don’t want unnecessary radiation. I’m sure it will go away.”

Only it didn’t. So, finally I gave in. I’d run through potential problems (gallstones, appendicitis, kidney stones, ulcers, acid reflux, gastritis, pancreatitis) in my mind, but nothing quite fit the bill.

We arrived at the ER in time to get the last available bed. Hallelujah! They mentioned that I had a TV to myself. And if this gives you any indication of my pain, I couldn’t even enjoy the prospect of an HGTV marathon. The techs and registration aid mentioned once or twice that the doctor would be “right with me”. Because I know that that does not necessarily mean anything except for ‘eventually, the doctor will be with you’, I didn’t get my hopes up. Rightly so.

Two hours passed and the pain was on the rise again. I was squeezing the dickens out of Rockstar’s hand, and rocking back and forth on the bed. All I could think was that no one had even come in to eyeball me—to evaluate if I could safely wait for two hours in an ER bay. At least I had the medical knowledge to know that that was probably fine, but I thought about how helpless this wait must feel to most patients.

And as the pain rose, I started to feel helpless myself. The nurse and doctor finally came in. They were very nice, very caring, and I appreciated that. Normally I take pains not to mention that I am a doctor, because I don’t want people to feel awkward taking care of me or like I am demanding special treatment. But the hours of pain changed this, and so I found a way to work into the conversation that I was a doctor, desperate for something to speed up the process to relief.

The nurse told me she’d be right back with the pain medicine, and she left.




45 minutes later, I was without medicine and the pain marched on.

Rockstar looked at me writhing. “Honey, just push your call button. Tell them you need the pain medicine.”

“No…I’ll wait just one more minute. I know how annoyed they can get at pushy patients. And I don’t want them to think I’m a drug seeker.”
I sat there and weighed being the pushy patient vs. enduring pain.

I stared at the red call button. And as a wave of pain came over me, I finally groaned in pain, and pushed it. The nurse came in. “I’m so sorry,” she said, “I had to take a patient to the ICU.”

“No problem, I totally get that. But I could really use something for pain.”

She delivered the morphine through my IV, and the relief spread through my body rapidly. In that moment, my gratitude for modern medicine was immense. And finally, I was able to enjoy HGTV.

Then came the tests: blood work: normal. Ultrasound: normal.

The doc came back: “I know you don’t want a CT scan, but this is pretty strange pain, and I’m worried if I send you home and we’re missing something…”

I consented.

**but perhaps I should have run away!**



Then it was off to the radiation suite, for an injection of IV contrast. ‘Sweet’, I thought, “Now I’m going to have to pump and dump for at least 24 hours’.

They wheeled me back to my room after the scan. It had been hours since the morphine, now, and still no pain had returned.

A while later, the doctor came in.

“Well, the CT scan was normal.”

Of course.

We discussed my mysterious pain, she dispensed some back up pain meds, and I walked out of the ER. I walked past dozens of other patients in beds, feeling lucky to be walking out of there, back to the golden light of the evening, and to my family.

After all was said and done, I was sad to have lost the 74 degree day of adventure I’d so been craving.
But I was glad for many things:
To remember what it is like to be the patient: to be sitting in a room, having no idea what the timeline is and wondering when you’ll get relief. To be scared of not knowing the answer, but worried about the effects of testing.

To remember what it’s like to have to tell many people the same set of information, and to be poked and prodded by multiple strangers.

That I’d been the recipient of kind medical staff.

That I'd had my husband next to me during the ordeal.

To be ultimately okay. To have my pain taken away.

To know there will be other 74 degree days.

I’m grateful that I can take this experience, and use it.
That I can remember what it’s like to be on the other side of things.
That I can take off that soft, worn hospital gown, replace it with a crisp white coat, and with additional understanding in my pockets, continue in my efforts to heal.

**Maybe next weekend, there will be more of this.**

What Makes a Doctor Tick

**


Today I was examining a 6 month old patient of mine. He is such a little cutie, with delectable fat rolls in all the right places. After we finished up, mom asked if I could take a look in his older brother's ear. Older brother had had a cold for almost two weeks, and in the last few days, had been complaining of right ear pain.

I was glad to oblige, and pulled my my otoscope off the wall. When I looked in his ear, there was a roadblock. "Cerumen Impaction Ahead!" So, if I was going to get a look at the ear to evaluate for infection, I was going to have to remove the wax.

I hunted down an ear curette. Big brother was a champ and held very still while I used the curette to clean his ear. It didn't take long before a large wax plug came neatly out.

Simultaneously, mom and I said, "Ewww!" and "Yes!"

Guess which exclamation was mine?

I don't know much, but I know I find strange things satisfying.

Once I had a clear view of his ear drum, I could see the infection easily. And what I could see, I could fix.

Wishing you a clearer perspective in all your endeavors this week. :)

**We think clearer with bows in our hair. And apparently for Tiny, the more the better. We get our bows at Coco Penny, the brainchild of my fabulously talented sister and her fabulously talented friend, Marianne. Check it out! We can't get enough.