A"cute" Emergency

Ask any parents and they'll tell you that life with kids is never predictable, especially when it comes to illness. (I'm guessing predictability would make parenting boring?)

What started for Edward as a common cold put him in the ER at the Reading Hospital and Medical Center. He had somehow developed acute bronchitis.

When you watch your child struggling to breath and see his heart beating through his shirt, you begin to realize how fragile life is, especially for a child. A 2-year-old boy in our church nearly died from a similar condition last month. So my concern for Edward wasn't small.

As I watched him trying to rest on his bed, I knew I had to make a decision. Our doctor's office closes at 2 p.m. on Fridays. It was 1:10. Add to that the fact that we only have one car which Stuart had just driven back to work after his lunchbreak. Then to complicate things just a "tad" more, add in a big snow/ice storm that had just started and was now blanketing the roads with slushy danger.

I called the doctor and had Edward speak to him just to be sure I wasn't being an over-concerned mom who was jumping to the wrong conclusions in assuming his cold was more than it seemed. The doctor told me to take him immediately to the ER where they would have more equipment to help him should he need it.

Then I called Stuart, and by 2 p.m. we were in the ER.

As an aside, I hate going to the ER -- not that anyone loves it really. Thankfully, we've only been there a handful of times. But the amount of time you wait to be seen can intensify the worry. Yesterday was different because we were in the hospital's new ER.

The snow and the fact that they'd recently opened an urgent care center down in Reading helped us be seen in a matter of minutes. They gave Edward a pager similar to those you get in restaurants when you're waiting, and we had only just sat down to watch a PBSKids show when it began flashing.

After weighing him, taking his temperature, and listening to his lungs and heart (his heartrate was 185), Edward was checked-in and taken by wheelchair to his room. He was hooked up to all kinds of machines to monitor his vitals and then put on oxygen to help ease his breathing struggles. Through it all, he stayed calm and obedient, doing whatever they asked him to do and even downplaying how he felt. (We were amazed because he's so shy, and a year ago this little guy might not have been so cooperative.)

When they took him to X-ray, Stuart went along, and Emily and I stayed behind to wait. I told her how proud I was that she was being so "brave" for Edward by not crying, though I could see that she was on the verge of tears (as was I). She said she had to be strong for him so that he could be brave, too. Then she did start to cry. I explained that it was okay to cry because it was scary to see him so sick. I had cried when we were still at home, and I was deciding what to do. She looked up at me and said, "Mommy, I'm so proud of you. You're being so brave, too."

Lots of hugs and a few more tears (from both of us) later, we sat smiling again when Edward returned from X-ray with four stickers for being so brave.

Needles have never been a favorite for Edward -- again, not that anyone loves them -- so when they came to draw blood and put in an IV line, he lost his "bravery" momentarily and two large tears rolled down his cheeks as he said, "Ow!" More stickers, the promise of a new matchbox airplane, and many hugs and kisses later, he sat watching TV while the IV dripped and the monitors blipped.

It was all a bit surreal.

After more TV time, an hour-long breathing treatment, and a mega-dose of antibiotics in the IV, the doctors decided they didn't need to keep Edward overnight and that he was okay to go home with a nebulizer.

Then a nurse asked if he'd gotten his t-shirt.

T-shirt??

You know the saying: "Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt?" Well, she wasn't kidding, and off she went in search of a nice blue T-shirt (and coloring book and crayons) for a brave boy. He proudly wore it out of the ER...a little PR for the hospital? Not a problem...they did treat him "good" in the ER.

It was just about 6:30 p.m. when we rolled out of the parking lot onto the slush-covered roads on our way to McDonald's for Happy Meals all around.

Quite an experience for all involved. Thank God for our little guy now sitting in front of the TV watching an episode of Veggietales.

I can report that now we're all breathing a little easier.