My poor little Jocelyn has again thrown us for a loop. Her blood sugar has been stable, no worries there. However, she gave us a scare on Thursday morning when she woke up screaming, holding the back of her head, and saying "Owie!" I had know idea what was bothering her, but I figured she had a headache, so I gave her some tylenol and rocked her. This seemed to comfort her, but as soon as I moved, which caused her to move, she screamed "owie" again. I was on my way out the door to work, so Sam took her for me. After being at work for 30 minutes, I got the dreaded call from Sam. The, "somethings wrong with her, I can't move her without her screaming, she is in pain, what do I do" call. So, I did what any mom would do. I cryed. Then I put my big girl panties on and told my boss I was leaving to take my baby to the ER.
Side note: I have not had good experiences with Memorial Hospital (the only hospital that our insurance covers.) I would not choose to go here, but at 7:00am, when the Medi-center isn't open, nor is the general doctor's office, I had no other choice.
So, for the abbreviated version of our stay, the nurse listened to my story, asked a couple questions, witnessed her crying and wimpering with any move, and told me the doc would be in.
A long time later, the doctor came in, listened to my story, asked a couple questions, witnessed her crying and wimpering with any move, and looked in her ears. He told me that her left ear was slightly red and infected and was probably causing the pain. He did say that that was not a normal reaction from a child with an ear infection...you know...the part about her holding THE BACK OF HER HEAD!
After I told him that I wasn't really convinced it could be that, I asked him if it was possible that it was Mastoiditis. He said, well, we can do some blood work.
Did he exam her? No. (besides looking in her ears) Did he look in her eyes? No. Did he feel around her ears, neck, head? No. Did he ask if she could walk? No. Did he touch her in any way? No! No! No!
Blood work came back normal except for some slight dehydration. Wrote me a perscription for a left ear infection. Told me that he wasn't completely comfortable sending me home. But did. And told me to bring her back if she didn't get better.
So, I went home and held her and cuddled. She got to the point where she would walk around, play with her toys, and then boom, she would scream, holding her head. Another minute would pass, and she started eating. No problems. Then, scream, etc. This kept going and I decided that this was not right, so I called her doctor. The nurse asked a couple questions. Did the Dr. at the ER feel any lumps, did her eyes look okay, did her neck move well, when he tried to move it? And my answer to those were "uh, no, he didn't since he didn't even touch her!"
So, I took her to the best doctor's office ever! My doctor did a THOROUGH exam. The first, most amazing part, was that neither ear was red! No ear infection! (I was fuming mad when I heard that part!) She wanted to do a CatScan, but hesitated due to the amount of radiation. Get this. A CT scan on a child her age, is equivalent to 750 chest x-rays! Huge amounts of radiation that has statiscally shown to decrease intelligence level. So, they like to keep these for people with obvious head trauma etc.
So, we are giving her allergy meds (since she has had a cough and runny nose for the last week or so) in hopes that maybe there is some pressure in her head from allergies. If, by Monday, she is still having head pains, they will consider a CT, although, I am not quite sure I will agree to it yet!
As of today, she hasn't complained yet of any pain, so I am hugely relieved. My "mother's intuition" is telling me that it is not serious or life threatening. That means something doesn't it?!
Oh, and just another note: Looks like part of our ER visit will be credited after my husband called the ER doctor and told him that she doesn't have an ear infection and that he did a crappy job of not examing her! Nice work Sam! And another note: Probably won't ever go back there again! :-)
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