Our ER Trip

Update: Photo removed for safety reasons.

An update on Miss Lindley.

(Here's a picture of Lindley that my sister took last month, I think.)

About 5:30 a.m. Sunday morning she started throwing up. A much longer story a little shorter...I called her cardiologist in Fort Worth. Found out it could just be a virus or a sign that fluid was building up around her heart. Watched her grow more weak and pale by the hour. The cardiologist told us we could stay in our town to have IV's hooked up for fluids, a chest x-ray, blood work, and an echocardiogram. She warned us we'd have to go through our town's ER and that it would be a 6 hour process since it was a Sunday. Very close. It was 5 hours in the ER. Good times.

The cardiologist was pretty sure it was probably just a virus, but we were scared to take the gamble and keep her home. Once family came over to keep the other kids, Lindley suddenly perked up and made us feel like maybe we were jumping the gun on the ER decision, but before long she grabbed her blanket and laid down on the floor by her grandmother's feet.

We decided to take her to the ER---8 1/2 hours after the vomiting first occurred, so we were tired of waiting to see what would happen.

There was no kind of sedation, and obviously children were not their speciality like Cook Children's. I don't know how many IV's were stuck into her veins before they finally called a pediatric nurse and were successful. Words can't describe the combination of Lindley seeing another hospital bed and nurses combined with being stung with needles and blood running out of her arms onto the sheets on both sides of her. Blood curdling screams for 3 hours straight is the best I can do to describe it as people held down her arms and legs and proceeded to do blood tests, IV's, chest x-rays, and an echocardiogram.

We promised her the echo wouldn't hurt. We didn't think about how hard the tech would be pressing down all around her incision over her broken bone down the center of her chest. We also didn't know that the tech wouldn't notice she had stuck a lead (or whatever they're called) on top of the hole where her chest tube entered. When that was removed, it ripped off the scab. SCREAAAAAAAAAAAAMS all around. We wanted to hit her. We've been specially doctoring that spot for an entire week trying to get it to heal properly.

Then it was just a matter of waiting around for our local ER doctor to get all the results to the on-call physician in Fort Worth. We turned off the lights, and Lindley fell asleep for almost two hours. She cried and whimpered in her sleep every few seconds almost the entire time. I've never heard her do that before.

Yesterday was horrifying compared to our experience at Cook's. I think the difference was that I knew they were hurting her because they were incompetent. The screams at Cook's were usually out of fear and not pain. I know their incompetence was partially related to the fact that they weren't trained to deal with a child like her, so I didn't get furious enough to file a complaint or anything. I'm just really glad it's over. The thought of having to take her back to Fort Worth on Thursday to do it ALL over again is something I DREAD!

Hopefully by then her virus will be gone and none of our other children will be sick.