Diary of a Wimpy Mom

 

May 2011.  I’m a calm-under-pressure kinda mom and I don’t react irrationally when Emergencies come about I just act.  This same little miss had us in the Emergency Room for excessive vomiting when she was only 7 months old, and my husband always commented, “How did you know she just wasn’t regular sick.”  I really didn’t have an answer.  I just knew that my spry baby girl was so sick she was on a blanket and would throw up turn her head and throw up never crawling or moving.  Lethargy is scary and that was my only symptom to go on besides the vomiting.  The doctor’s exchange had a time frame, if she can’t keep anything down past 9:00pm a trip to the ER for fluids.  It would take another trip to the bigger ER for Zofran, a barium swallow and an ultrasound and then on to admitting for an overnight stay to finally get my little girl well, only five days after it began.  Four Dehydration Boluses and a Maintenance Fluid later we could go back home---yup I now know that piece of hospital trivia.  

October 2013.  By no means am I a professional EMT but I do know my way around an Emergency Room.  Having kids makes you professional unless you are of the rare breed of moms that bubble-wrap your kids.  Most of the trips have been from some crazy antic my children have gotten themselves into and a couple have been mom induced…STOP…before you call CPS, the kid brought it on herself…WAIT…yeah I’m going to have to explain this.  The boys had a few boy-like injuries so, I have dealt with scrapes, bruises and bug bites that look like a kid got into a bar brawl.  We’ve also done stitches and swallowing pennies; whereas my third-born, princess grew my status to tantrum injury. She entered the world and brought a lot more sass than my sass levels were accustomed. One day, upon leaving the car and being too close to a dangerous road, I was juggling my then 22 month old lovely while trying to get an infant car seat out of the car.  She wanted to let go of my hand.   I was being cautious and  wouldn’t let go and when I finally pulled the seat out and started walking, little miss decided the front porch was the opposite way and she yanked, twisted and simultaneously sat down to tantrum all while I was holding her hand.  Nursemaids elbow.  If you have never experienced the “limp noodle” tantrum then you need to stop now and clearly, have more children.  

I cried while she cried.  I wouldn’t even know what this was, but a friend of mine had a daughter with weak ligaments and her elbows popped out of joint monthly.  So I rocked my baby to sleep and called the office.  A not so quick doctor’s visit put it back in place, but she would do it twice more, once on a weekend, warranting an ER visit.  I cried then too because the ER doctor had a bit of trouble putting it back into place amid the painful screaming.

Sunday, October 2016.  By now I have five children and my 16 month old is round two of girlhood.  She doesn’t have as much sass as her sister and her antics are little more rowdy, and she seems a bit tougher.  There is a fiery temper hiding behind her big blue eyes and thumb sucking, but she’s a bitty little thing who is a go-with-the-flow gal…until Sunday.  Our weekly circus at Church began like usually but I was flying solo with the only “well” children who were starting to also not feel well.  Both my little girl and three year old boy wanted my lap, but didn’t want to share.  So the politics ensued about whose mommy I was until slapping, crying and pushing were involved.  I continued to hold the baby while I let my son go see his grandparent’s in the neighboring pew.  Everything seemed to calm down until my snuggly little girl decided to jump—yes, she tried to jump down to the pew in front.  I caught her before she smashed her face but only got her leg while the rest of her body just twisted all around.  She just cried and cried.  But she’s been frightened by a fall before, so I was telling myself the tears and crying were from fear.  Except for that gnawing initial thought of her leg being the wrong way when she dove.  I exited the pew and calmed her down and her thumb sucking consoled, but twenty minutes later that gnawing initial thought was chewing its way out.  She hadn’t been put down since it first happened, so I placed her on the floor and my baby collapsed under her own weight.  She looked at me in shock, like what happened Mommy.  So I stood her up and she collapsed again. I started to cry.  I thought, I think I need to bring her in.

The doctor’s exchange verified an ER visit and off I went prepared to spend a huge portion of my day.  First there was waiting, then Triage, then waiting, then pediatric ER, then waiting; every time the story retold, but all for the good of knowing whether there was a break and why she can’t walk.  No exterior signs of injury except an excessive amount of struggle and fighting from my 16 month old.  She even slapped the doctor’s hand when he was checking her neck for injury.  I was a little shocked and embarrassed and then I felt it…that sense of she’s probably fine but here I am in the ER anyways.  What is that, embarrassment or relief or a little bit of both?  

The x-rays were ordered to make sure there were no fractures and we waited again.  My baby was getting frustrated, angry and ornery and was making efforts to stand and squirm and tantrum.  Not the lethargic patient that her sister was so many years before.  When we went into X-ray, two techs explained that I would be holding her foot and pressing her knee down with a plastic paddle to get the X-Ray.  My baby was bottomless and helpless and yet she put on one of the feistiest struggles I have ever seen.  Helpless my @$$!  She is less than 20 lbs and had at least 20 lbs in total of weighted bags on her arms and other leg and the other tech was trying to keep her still.  The tech began to get frustrated with me because “wimpy mom” couldn’t hold her daughter’s leg still with all of my might.  “No, you can’t put your hand there; only hold her toes and keep the paddle pushed down.  No, move your hand.  No, hold her like this.  We have to keep her still.  Okay, new plan.  Mom, you hold her body I will hold her leg.”  Two grown @$$ women could barely keep this tiny, itty bitty baby down.  Baby girl succeeded in making us both sweat and question the “injury”.  Back to the room for more waiting and some Ibuprofen; 20 minutes had now passed and the medicine clearly had kicked in because she was standing up and jumping on the bed.  Caution, mom; no in-hospital injuries please…we don’t need a real reason to be here.  X-ray results show nothing and the doctor explains that there is a 2% chance there could still be fracture.  Thanks Doc, you made me feel like my 3 hours was well spent because 2% of my fear is still there so that 98% of embarrassment will need to be balanced out with 100% wine.  

We are homebound.  I am relieved, embarrassed, wimpy.  Mom’s cry, because it takes all the strength of our being to “mom” everyday.  We are trying to rear some decent human beings and sometimes that strength is questioned because you just can’t see what’s wrong.  It’s in a look, a feeling, a certain cry a sense of something is not right, and because you are a mom you want to put it right, with the Emergency Room Doctor’s help.  Sometimes, we need to be reassured that it’s not as bad as we thought and sometimes a little girl has to make it impossible to hold her down to show you she’s all right.  I may sometimes be a wimpy mom, but I got some pretty tough kids.