November 4th/5th Everett's First Trip to the ER

So here is how it all started...

Friday night Everett came down with a bad fever while we were attending my old works fall festival. He has a costume on outside but we changed before going home. The kid was on fire! I thought maybe he just got to warm in the costume but we were outside but we did go in the bouncer some. My first clue that he wasn't feeling well though was when he won a cupcake at the cake walk and didn't really want it. Vinson was also warm out of his costume so we thought maybe everything was okay. We figured he would cool down as we left and got in the car and aired out a little.

After winning a cupcake

By the time we got home, nothing really changed. We took his temperature with our thermometer which I don't feel is the best (It's a temple/armpit one) but it said 102.9 I think. We called Anthon's mom and here come over with her better thermometer (an ear one) and his temperature was 101 something I think. So we started by giving him some Tylenol or Ibuprofen and piggy backed those every 3 hours. He seemed to do fairly well as long as we kept it in his system but we didn't want to wake him up in the middle of the night all the time so his fever would go back up some in the evenings. We were also using some oils that my friend Marie gave us to try and help. We used peppermint on his chest, on guard on his feet and melaluca on his ears (all mixed with olive oil).

Feeling Feverish

This lasted all weekend so on Monday night we finally decided that we better take him into the doctor so we took him to the Phoenix Children's urgent care. One way we can tell Everett doesn't feel good is by looking at his eyes. It gives him away every time. We got to urgent care and he was doing fairly well but I suspected that he had an ear infection and that was the cause of the fever. We got back into the room and they checked him out. He did indeed have the start or finish of an ear infection in one of his ears. She told us that she would write a prescription but that if he seemed to be doing okay then we didn't need to fill it because we don't want to use medication when something can go away on its on. I think the oils helped.

Can I just brag about how good Everett was at this appointment too! He stepped right on the scale and let them weigh him, he gave no trouble in getting his temp taken or pulse checked, and sat still for them to check his heart and breathing. This was by far the best he had ever been at the doctor.

Minutes after it happened

So after we went over the symptoms, the doctor stepped out of the room to write the scripts and get the discharge paperwork. Everett was being happy and walking around carrying his blankie and a couple toys. He was walking towards me when he tripped and hit his face on the vertical corner of the cabinet next to me. He was not running or anything. I quickly pulled him up to look at him and he had split his lip open. I quickly ran to the door letting them know he hit his head and they immediately came in. They got an ice pack and some gauze for the bleeding and Everett wasn't too upset until he saw blood. I held him tight while sitting on the floor and was crying myself. It killed me to see him hurting and upset and life was just tough in general with having my arm broken and etc. I rocked him back and forth and told him it was okay because mommy had him and he would just say hurt because it hurt. He was such a big boy though and let me hold the ice and gauze on.

After they were able to look at it, they saw it crossed a specific line on the lip that when crossed needs stitches otherwise we could let it heal naturally. Unfortunately at urgent care they are not allowed to sedate people so we had to go to the hospital. There really isn't any way to stitch up a 2 year olds mouth when they are crying without sedating them because the risk is too high of messing up. Getting it stitched up was the best way to reduce scarring as well.

We went to Cardon's Children's Hospital. I called Anthon while at Urgent Care and one of my friends dropped him off at a Circle K and I picked him up to take him with me. They checked us in and then Everett was able to get some napping time in on Anthon's shoulder.

Taking a nap on dad at the ER

They gave him something for the pain at Urgent Care. Once we got into a room they asked us about when he had eaten last, what happened and when he last got medication. They said they didn't want to sedate him until it had been 8 hours since he had eaten. They did shorten that time a little so that we didn't have to wait quite as long. As we wanted they put an IV in his arm which was terrible and then put a big guard over it so he didn't mess with it. It kind of made him look like he had broken his arm then they had a blood pressure cuff on him and a light to check his pulse on his thumb. He stayed pretty content for the most part and either: A) had me lay in his bed with him or B) laid in dad's lap in the chair. He slept a little off and on.

 Once we knew they weren't going to do anything for quite sometime, we decided that Anthon better go home because he had school the next day. Everett wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything while we were there. Silly me thought we would only need one car because I was upset and needed Anthon with me so my Awesome friend Carol came a got Anthon at the hospital to take him home so the Everett and I would still have a car to get home when we got released.

It's been a few months (so it's hard to remember every detail) but I think they started getting everything ready to stitch him up at about 1am. I remember asking them if I was going to be allowed to stay in the room while they did it and they said no. I felt heart broken and had to try super hard to keep from getting too emotional. I was allowed to stay in as they started to sedate him so he could look at me while they did it and not freak out. The time I spent in the waiting area felt like forever.

Everything turned out just fine and I was super greatful that Carol was awake and I could talk to her and it gave me comfort. She probably doesn't know how much she helped but she did. She is the best! Our boys love her too. She does a lot of baby sitting for us and the boys have a blast. When I went into the room he was totally out of it. We were observed for an hour to make sure he was okay and not going to have any problems.

Waking up

Mesmerized by the light on his thumb

 He was fascinated with the red light they put on his thumb that took his pulse and had a really hard time focusing his eyes. They would shake when he would look at things. It was so sad to see him that way. He was finally able to have some juice and did just fine with that and then eventually he was ready to go but very unsteady so he wasn't allowed to get up and walk around or anything.

We got home a little before 4 and I was grateful to have such amazing people to work for were understanding and take the day off on tuesday. Everett slept with us because they instructed us to stay with him every minute for the first 12 hours or so after being released just in case the sedation was still wearing off. It was great to snuggle him and love on him and be there when he needed me. Anthon went to school like normal and Vinson went to Anthon's parents so we were able to have the whole morning to sleep.

The next day

Everett had a hard time not wanting to pick at this lip and we did our best to keep in clean and moist. When we went in for the follow up, everything looked good they said. It isn't too noticeable now but I can see it more when he has his lips tightened up. We are so forunate that there was no damage really to the inside of the mouth and his teeth.

 And that is how our first trip to the ER went.