Keeping Things Exciting: A Trip to the ER

As if things haven’t been exciting enough this month, Zane and I took a trip to the ER yesterday. We didn’t begin there. In fact, I tried very hard to keep us away from the place.

Early Monday morning—we’re talking 3:00am—Zane woke up upset and crying. Basically, he didn’t stop for 40 hours. Sure, there were brief moments where he tried to rally. But it was mostly upset. And, because I know him so well, I could tell it was related to extreme pain.

I tried some home remedies to see if I could narrow down the source of the pain. 1) I stopped his feeds and replaced them with Pedialyte, thinking he may have stomach issues. 2) I also gave him Tylenol, which was pretty much hit or miss. 3) I kept his urology appointment on Monday, which had been scheduled a couple of months ago, because I suspected his latest UTI hadn’t gone away with the recent script of antibiotics. 4) Then, I took him to his pediatrician yesterday to see if he could get to the source of the problem. 5) The pediatrician sent us to the ER because he couldn’t find anything on thorough exam. He believed the hardware in Zane’s back may have shifted, and he wanted x-rays.

After a 4-½ hour visit in the ER, which included an IV, catheterization, blood draw, and x-rays, everything came back normal. The ER doc asked if I wanted to have Zane admitted so the hospital staff could run more tests. However, she didn’t know exactly what those tests might be. I chose to go home. My initial thought—before calling the PCP yesterday morning—was that Zane had back pain from moving around so much in the past week (he’s become quite the active kiddo lately). So when we finally got home, I went with my initial instinct: to give him narcotics to ease the pain.

Right now, it is 4:00am. Zane’s been asleep since 8:00pm or so, only waking once with upset. He received another dose of meds at that time. So—all that said—I still don’t know what’s hurting him. I’m going to give him a couple of days on the narcotics and see how he is. If he doesn’t improve, or if he takes a turn for the worse, we’ll go back to the ER.