More from the ER

It was another busy night in the ER – not crazy busy, like it was during flu season, but busy enough to make the hours fly by. Last night was sick kid night, with way too many treatment rooms occupied by sad, red-cheeked or pale-faced, feverish, vomiting or dehydrated, tearful, fearful, injured or just feeling really crummy children.

There was the little girl with the broken arm – a fall off her playset – so brave and strong, smiling at staff and her worried parents, as the x-ray machines and doctors and nurses came and went… Several tiny ones with fevers came in – little babies, so new to this world that it’s hard to remember any human is ever that small…The vomiting toddlers, all flush-cheeked and sweaty - angry, scared and unwilling to let any of strangers in scrubs come anywhere near. That’s the age for stranger danger, and boy! do their parents have a hard time of it, listening to their wailing near hysteria, as IV lines are established, and fluids, shots and medicine are given…

One particularly sad story involved an 11-year-old boy who got hit by a car while playing at a friend’s house. The boys were riding bikes, just after dark. They weren’t wearing helmets, lights or reflective clothing. A car hit one of them from behind…I didn’t hear exactly how the accident occurred, but I know the boy suffered a severe head injury and had to be transferred to Scottish Rite in Atlanta.
Heartbreakingly brave, tired and so alone, was the new mother of twin girls – less than two weeks old. One of the twins was vomiting and had bad diarrhea; the other was fine. Two tiny pink bundles, beautiful, long fingers, pursed lips - so fragile, so precious, so well-dressed, so young…The mom looked very tired. She said she hadn’t had any sleep in three days, and was “pretty much doing this alone,” tears welling up in her eyes. Apparently, the dad cut out shortly before the twins were born and her family lives far away…

There was a brave, perky, precocious little Hispanic girl who needed stitches in her hand. Even though the hospital provides interpreters, she insisted on talking to the doctor and nurses herself, saying “I can speak English by myself.”

There was the very worried mother an autistic girl, summoned by her daughter’s teacher after the child had a seizure at pre-school. Mom arrived at the ER 10 minutes before the ambulance, and she was kicking herself for not going to the child’s school instead.

“They told me to come to the hospital, but I should’ve gone there instead,” she said, starting to cry. “I should be with her…She shouldn’t have ride with strangers alone…”

The next ambulance brought a little girl with diabetes who had stopped eating earlier in the week, so her blood sugar was all messed up. Her mother was also worried and very tired-looking. She became tearful – this time happy tears – when the doctor told her the girl was sick with an easily treatable infection and the antibiotics should have her eating again in no time.

I had to do a CPS (Child Protective Services) report on a little boy who suffered a badly broken arm after “falling off his mother’s bed.” The mother seemed attentive and the child was clearly “high energy.” But, the severity of the injury did not match the story, so the Department of Family and Children’s Services will have to check into it…That little boy rode off to Egleston, in Atlanta, laughing, and yelling, and using his good arm to shoot his little foam-shooting ice cream cone (an ER freebie) at everyone he encountered as his gurney rolled down the hall to the ambulance bay.

All so precious, all so frail, all so sick or injured when they arrive…many, thankfully, so many, so much better when they leave…It makes us happy to see a little one who came in really sick leave, smiling, waving, saying, “Bye-bye!”…It makes us sad to see a tiny one flown out on a helicopter, surrounded by fancy equipment and nurses in flight suits…We are infuriated by the abuse we see…And, deeply affected by the occasional, but devastating infant or child death…

My “baby” turns 26 this week. And, while I am so proud of the young woman she has become, my memories of her growing up remain quite vivid. We were well-blessed, in that she only had one trip to the ER, after a fall off a three foot wall, when she was two.

I still remember the sight of her tiny, briefly lifeless-looking body, lying at the foot of that brick wall. I remember how her short and so very precious life flashed through my mind, as I scooped her up and called 911. I remember the joy I felt when she came to a few moments later, and the relief I felt when the ambulance arrived….Her fall turned out to be nothing, but it felt like a lot that day…

That’s the thing the ER teaches me every shift – and, challenges me to remember every day – life is so fleeting and full of unexpected accidents and illnesses. Every day that passes calamity-free is a good day, no matter what else is going on.