Welcome to the ER . . . Your Room is Down the Hall, On the Right

First, I am aware that my title on my last post was very much grammatically incorrect. It's bothering me too. I'm not changing it. That's all.

Last night, we decided to head to church with Patrick. We don't go during the school year, because it's just too hard to get fed and bathed and out the door on time. Plus it has us climbing into bed way past bedtime. But during the summer, we try to go with him as much as possible.

Anyway, last night we went, but before we left I mentioned to Patrick that I wanted to be home by 9:00. I was tired and didn't want to be up half the night. Uh, anyone remember Murphy's Law? Yeah, it didn't cross my mind either. So, we got to church, and made it through praise & worship without any major problems. Andrew was in a good mood, and was ready to go to "Sunday" School. After the music was finished, I dropped him off with his teachers and headed to help Patrick with the youth.

Youth was uneventful, and I didn't have to lay the smack down on anyone so that was good. Just as we were finishing up, one of the teachers from Andrew's class comes to get me and tells me that his ear is hurting really badly. Now, Andrew has had a lot of ear infections. He's had tubes three times. At one point he was on antibiotics for 40 days solid. Any time he says his ear hurts I take it seriously.

I went to check on him, and sure enough, there he sat with his hand over his left ear. He kept saying it was hurting "bad" so I decided to gather up his things. All the while, Andrew continued to complain, and I was about ready to hit the ER because the last time this happened (with tubes in his ears) the fluid couldn't drain and his ear drum burst. Before, we made a final decision on what to do, Patrick took Andrew to the bathroom, and that's when the wailing crying began. I couldn't figure out what was going on, but Andrew was coming apart at the seams, so I busted in the bathroom. That's when he said it, "Mommy, I put a pencil in my ear." Oh for the love of money . . . child, you have got to be kidding me! Nope, he wasn't kidding. He actually put a pencil in his ear. So we knew for sure that a trip to the ER was warranted.

When we got to the ER it was packed. I mean it was crawling with people. It was like "Hey let's all head to the ER and have a family reunion. Yay!" Very few people actually looked sick. That didn't matter. I went into full on germaphobe mode. Don't anyone dare touch anything, and keep your breathing shallow. You're less likely to inhale something that way. Sounds good anyway. Thank the good Lord above, we got called back relatively quickly, where we then waited for an eternity. I thought Andrew might be driving by the time we got out of there.

Like I said, we waited for an eternity, and I really didn't care if it was a senile patient from the psych ward (there is no psych ward in the hospital we were at), I just wanted someone to look in his ear. It was late, and you would think my child would be tired. Possibly falling asleep. Oh no, he was singing and dancing and repeatedly asking us to take his picture on our phones. It was becoming evident that his ear wasn't damaged, but darnit, I had already paid my copay, and somebody was looking in that ear. While we waited, I eavesdropped on the other patients through the curtains. The things people do and say amaze me. I mean the ER would be first rate entertainment if wasn't for all the bacteria, viruses, blood, and bodily fluids. Sorry. I shouldn't have said bodily fluids.

Anyway, after approximately 15 years, the Doctor or P.A. or Janitor or whoever the nice man was, came and took about 2.3 seconds to look in Andrew's ear. Guess what? It was fine. Then they chatted about carnival rides. Strange? Yes, but then again my life is bizarre so nothing surprises me anymore. He told us to sit tight, and he would get us our discharge papers . . . cue Jeopardy theme song . . . now cue it 150 more times.

Finally after a decade or ten, this very nice, very clueless nurse brings us our discharge papers. She says, "I'm so glad there was nothing in his ear." I respond, "Oh we didn't think there was anything in there. We were just concerned because he shoved a pencil down it and wanted to be sure he didn't damage anything." She answers, "Oh yeah, I'm really glad that pencil wasn't still in there." I stare at her blankly and nod and then say, "Well he just poked it in. He didn't leave it there." Which she follows with, "I know, I know. I'm just really glad the doctor didn't find the object in there." It was 11:00 p.m. I was exhausted, and this nurse apparently thought that we wouldn't notice if a pencil was stuck in our child's ear. I mean, how small did she think this pencil was? I gave up. I wasn't explaining it again.

We left. So much for making it to bed early. We finally laid down a little before midnight.  

And that girls and boys is why you do not let your children use pencils and/or pens until they are 35.

The End