My Real Life

April 22, 2010

You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 5:02 pm
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So, I’ve already explained that Monkey Girl suffers from some pretty severe allergies.

Honestly, even saying it that way is an understatement.

By 6:30 last night, the whites of her right eyeball had become blistered and had swollen up to start to cover and overlap the beautiful blue of her eye.

It was the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen.

However, I kept my Mommy-Cool and said “Real Man…dinner is ready.  You and the boys enjoy, I’m taking la chica to the ER.”

I’m not a fan of going to the ER.

There are some seriously injured people in the world, and I’d rather save the doctors and nurses and resources for them.

However, when you are looking at your 9 year old daughters eye and it appears as though it is actually about to pop…

…you take her to the ER.

It was packed in the ER.

Packed.

So, we didn’t get seen until around 8:30.

They confirmed that it was due to allergies, gave us a prescription for Patanol and sent us home.

On the way, we stopped at a 24-hour CVS to get the prescription filled.

Here, I must digress.

I don’t shop at CVS.

CVS is very much like Target to me.

There is almost nothing that CVS carries that I can’t rationalize putting in my basket and buying.

So, along with the prescription, we left CVS with 2 paperbacks, a 75% off solid chocolate bunny (which is just waiting for me to dip it in peanut butter), a box of tissues, and a “Yikes” magazine for Monkey Girl.

I think we showed remarkable restraint.

Anyway, we got home around 9:00 and Real Man had heated up dinner for us, so we sat at the kitchen island and chatted with Real Man while we ate.

Apparently, I was chatting too much and not chewing too well, and swallowed a too-large piece of roast beef.

Let’s rephrase…

I tried to swallow a too-large piece of roast beef.

Instead, I choked on it.

So, I could barely breathe, but couldn’t swallow at all.

My throat was making this awful gurgling sound, and as I tried to drink water, to flush it down, the water came right back out.

I tried looking up at the ceiling and swallowing.

I tried looking at the floor and swallowing.

I tried to make myself vomit to get it out of my freaking throat.

None of it worked.

For about 5 minutes, I tried to get that out, but couldn’t, and my breathing became more and more difficult.

Real Man did some type of modified heimlich maneuver, and that didn’t work, either.

So, he called 911.

They said they were sending the squad, and kept him on the line while I continued to try to dislodge the roast beef.

About three minutes after he called, it must have mushed enough that it finally slid down.

I said, “It’s down, it’s down! Tell them the squad doesn’t have to come.”

However, that’s not a bell you can unring.

They were on their way.

So, we sat in the living room and waited for them.

We saw the police lights before they reached our house, and then watched them drive right by.

We saw the ambulance lights before they reached our house, and then watched them drive right by.

Took them awhile to figure out we weren’t up the street, and Real Man and I were grateful that I wasn’t still choking, but, eventually, they made it to the house.

They came in, asked some questions, made me sign a waiver that I didn’t want to go to the hospital, and were on their way.

As we walked them out, Baby Monkey’s teacher from last year, who lives around the corner was walking up the driveway to see if we needed her to stay with the kids or to see if everyone was okay.

That was VERY sweet of her.

My greatest fear was that they would realize that we had just come from the ER with Monkey Girl and think that we were some crazy people who had both Munchausen and Munchausen by Proxy.

Luckily, they didn’t.

Strangely, there are probably people way weirder than us out there.

So, that was our Wednesday night.

Seriously…

…you just can’t make this stuff up.

January 22, 2010

Not So Much of an Emergency at the ER

So, I’m at work and I get a call from the school nurse at Monkey Girl’s school.

She took a spill on the playground and cut her knee pretty badly.  It was bleeding quite a bit, and was deep.

Also, the nurse wasn’t sure that she had gotten all of the gravel out.

Ick.

The nurse suggested I take her to the ER.

When I got to the school, Monkey Girl was waiting for me, and I knew, as soon as I looked at her that she was holding in the tears for the public audience.  So, I chatted with the nurse, quickly, signed her out and we left.

Let’s face it…the girl has had a rough couple of days.

First the girls on the bus.  Then, she finds out that Monkey in the Middle lost a charm I had given her (why she gave it to him, I’m not sure).  She woke up late this morning and had to change her shirt because Monkey in the Middle gave her a big snuggly hug and got snot on her sleeve and it wouldn’t come out.  And, when she fell, she got mud all over her fake pink Uggs from Target…her favorite shoes.

She deserved to let loose with a few tears.

No sooner were we in the hallway than the tears started.

I asked if it hurt, and she said “a little,” but that she was crying because she was nervous they were going to give her stitches.

Poor pumpkin cried all the way to the hospital.  We held hands (a little awkward since she sits in the backseat, but it’s what you do when your baby is crying) and got there eventually.

They checked us in, gave us a room, and we waited.

The doctor came in, checked the wound, poked around a bit, declared it gravel-free and not stitch worthy, gave us a few packets of Bacitracin and stuck on a big bandage, and we were good to go.

Once she realized there would be no shots or needles, Monkey Girl was all about the smiles.

We were discharged, picked up the boys, and went to ShopRite to do the shopping for next week.

I won’t say the kids took advantage of the fact that I was exhausted, physically and emotionally but we left ShopRite with 3 boxes of PopTarts, 2 packages of ShopRite bakery cookies, a bag of Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies, and a box of Entenmann’s doughnuts. (See my Grocery Goal page, for the full report on today’s trip to ShopRite).

Gotta tell you…if I have to go to the ER, this is the type of trip I’d prefer to have. 

No pain, no trauma, no real injury or illness.

As for Monkey Girl…she seems to have forgotten all about it.

Ah…youth.

September 8, 2009

Real Scary

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 9:10 am
Tags: , , , , , ,

So, Labor Day started out like any other holiday.  We slept late…wait, no we didn’t.  The monkeys were up at the crack of dawn, which means so were we.  But that’s okay.  They’re fun monkeys.

We played in the morning, inside and outside.  I cooked up some sausage for two batches of pasta and meat sauce and put it in the freezer.  We did laundry.  You know…the usually puttering stuff you do on Labor Day.

Then I took Monkey Girl for a haircut.  When we got home, we all read some library books together.  We had a date for dinner at my parents at 4:00, so around three, I gave the boy monkeys their bath and Monkey Girl took a shower.  We put on their jammies and were ready to go.  (We figured to do baths and jammies beforehand, so when we got home we could read books and go right to bed, as it was a school night.)

We hopped in the car and started driving.  We hadn’t gone far when Baby Monkey called from the backseat of the van, “Mommy! Daddy!  Look at my head!”  We turned around and his head was perfectly still, but his eyes were rapidly darting back and forth.  Rapidly is an understatement.  His eyes were moving back and forth faster than it is humanly possible to actually move your eyes.  Real Man held out his finger and said, “Look at my finger,” and Baby Monkey grabbed the sides of his head to try to stop his head from moving, which was unsuccessful, since it wasn’t his head that was moving at all.  It was his eyes, but he didn’t seem to understand that. 

I would say the whole thing lasted about 45 seconds.  Finally it stopped and Real Man and I just looked at each other.  It was pretty clear that Baby Monkey had just had some type of seizure.  Real scary.

So, we took the big monkeys to my parents and dropped them off, then took Baby Monkey to the ER.

I hate the ER.  I especially hate the pediatric ER.  There is always an adult crying and I’m always so incredibly sad for them because I know they are hurting because a child is in pain.  There is nothing sadder to see than a sick child, particularly because they are usually being so brave about it.  The pediatric ER breaks your heart, and it takes a really special type of person to work there.

We finally got a room, and we settled in.  The nurse came in and checked him out.  She asked if he had taken his cute pills, because he was the cutest little guy she’d ever seen.  About 5 minutes later, some other woman came in and said that the nurse said she had to come look at the cute guy.  10 minutes after that, someone else came in for the same reason.  So, that made him feel special.  And really…he is ridiculously cute.

The doctor came in and asked a bunch of questions.  She checked him out and said she wanted to consult with another doctor.  Nothing like waiting.  I understand and am glad that she was consulting with someone.  However, not knowing is torture.

Then, the other doctor came in and checked him out.  More consulting.

Long story short, they think that the odds are that he had a seizure.  The other possibility is that he had some type of vertigo episode which would be a result of a childhood migraine (my mother and I are both migraine sufferers), however, he hasn’t complained of any head pain.  So, we have to go see the neurologist this week.  The office opens in a few minutes and I will call then.

I’m home with him today because we need to keep an eye on his eyes for today and it’s easier to do in a one-on-one setting than it would be at daycare.  However, if today is fine, tomorrow he can go back to school. 

He seems to be fine.  He was fine as soon as it was over last night.  He’s just a happy-go-lucky little monkey.  Kids are amazingly resilient.  Much more so than adults.  He never whined, complained or looked at his watch.  He said thank you to the nurses and doctors.  He was disappointed he didn’t get to have spaghetti at his grandparents and didn’t get to play at their house.  But, he rolled with the punches, smiled at everyone and made the best of his situation.

I think we could all learn some important life lessons from our children.

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