Friday, December 08, 2006

ER again - St Louis

Dec 2 Saturday night
i caught Chantel playing with a toy that had these small battery cells. One of the battery cells was missing. We had around 4 such toys. and I knew that we had lost one battery cell from one of the toys in las vegas. Was this the same lost toy? I searched the las vegas suitcase for the other toys to check. But could not locate all the 4 toys.
Daph got lil uncomfortable. She was feeding rice to C.
C ate some rice. After sometime C put her hands into her mouth and vomitted all the rice she had been eating. I searched for the battery in the vomit. But it was not to be found. D got really uncomfortable. But C was eager to eat again and Daph fed her again. C was fine for sometime. But after 5 mins, C did the same thing. This time both of us got really scared. I searched for the battery again. Could not find it. So, we picked up our jackets and left for the ER. Again. I had asked D to sit at the back and not to let C go to sleep. I didnt know the relevance of this thing, but in movies, they never let a person go to sleep under these dire circumstances. So, eventhough, "not letting C go to sleep" might not be medically necessary, D was very particular and did a good job.
This ST Louis ER seemed to be quite different than the one in Las Vegas. They asked us to fill a form. After 5 mins the triage nurse took us in. She said C was breathing fine and so, she might not have actually swallowed the cell. She also told us that sometimes the throat could hurt because of an ear infection. That was a relief. We told her about the ear infection and the past one week of C's life. The nurse alloted us a room and with no time wasted we were taken there. We waited for sometime.
The nurse came and told us that she has ordered an xray. C didnt like it when the nurse tried to get her temperature. After sometime, we were taken to the xray room. Wore heavy gowns. Daph was ordered to hold C as she was wailing. I was asked to stay near the techinician behind the glass partition. The actual xray happened in a split second, and was digital and I could see whole of C's bone structure. Metallic parts like Daph's watch strap was visible but luckily no battery cell. It was sure that C didnt gulp the battery, after all. But the techinician would not tell us anything one way or other and said that the Doctor would brief us. May be some legal requirement, or something.
Doctor came after sometime and told that C didnt eat the cell. She also checked C's ear and prescribed a stronger antibiotics. We had to give this only once a day. That was good.
The Dr also told me that she liked the Fish theme for the interior design of the ER (which our firm had recently completed for the hospital)
We came in around 10 and left around 1145pm.

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