Trip to the Emergency Room

Damn you all things with stingers!  I hate bees, wasps, anything with a stinger.  I hate them.  Yes, I realize that is a really strong word, but seriously there is nothing I like about them except the fact that they pollinate the plants and flowers.  Besides that, nothing good can come from those things.  The only thing worse than a bee flying around your head is someone saying, "don't be afraid of a bee they are more afraid than you are."  Oh really?  What I want to say to those people is, well, I'll just keep that to myself.  If bees or wasps are so afraid of me then why do they insist on dive bombing me and flying straight toward my head?  I'm not bothering them.  I mind my own business.  Hell I even run when I see them, but that doesn't really deter them much.  If they are so afraid then why do they insist on building their nests right near my water hose?  Why?  Because they aren't afraid of me that's why.  I had one stare me down today just daring me to come near the water hose and when I did he started flying around my head and as usual, I froze.  I froze until I didn't hear it any longer and then I left.  My water hose is still laying in the grass.

Ok, so why I am going on such a rant about flying insects?  I'm getting there.

Yesterday afternoon, we were in the front of the house saying goodbye to our family that had visited for a lovely weekend.  I had opened the door to let Jack go back in when a wasp decided that he would go right on in.  Well, I was out of there and I ran to the garage.  Yes, I know I should try to be a little more brave in front of my children, but I am incapable of doing such a thing.  About that time my mother-in-law tells Mark that there is another one in the garage.  He comes for that one, swats it dead.  Hallelujah one wasp down only millions more to go.  However, my thrill of the kill didn't last very long because he goes after the second one and I guess even he was scared, although he is one of those people that tells you not to be afraid, because he turned to run after trying to kill it.  Everything happened very quickly after this.  I turned to see him lying on the ground and all I heard was "oh sh*t,"and crying.  Julia!

He comes running around the corner with her and there is blood everywhere.  Everyone is running to the kitchen.     Her little nose was like a faucet, her mouth was red, her teeth were red, she had a huge (already swollen) mark on her face and she was screaming.  Grandpa, mommy and daddy all had blood on them.  It was frightening.  Terrifying actually.  We spent several minutes trying to get her nose to stop bleeding and to clean her up a little.  After a short time she calmed down slightly and we loaded her in the car.  This would be our first trip to the emergency room.  The way she looked, there was no question that someone needed to check her out.  Off we go.  Jack stayed behind with the grandparents.  Thank God they were still here.

The emergency room is actually only about 5-7 minutes from the house so we were there in no time and fortunately, it wasn't a busy day.  We were back with the nurse within 10 minutes of our arrival.  Here is where it gets interesting and incredibly frightening, at least to us.

They come in to look at her, but in our opinion is was a very brief exam.  They barely looked at her.  They told us that her tongue was fine and the scraps would heal as good as new.  She hadn't passed out, vomited, her eyes weren't dilated and they were even.  However, they said that there was a lot of swelling and she would need a cat scan.  I just sat there.  Really?  A cat scan?  So I begin to ask questions of the Physicians Assistant (PA).  Yeah, they didn't even send the doctor in.  So I want to know the risk of exposure to radiation.  You see, for some unknown reason I have read a few articles recently about the high amounts of radiation that people are exposed to during cat scans and some believe that this greatly increases your risk of various cancers.  Lymphoma being one of them.  Lymphoma!  Well, now we are being asked to expose our two year old to high amounts of radiation?  Are you kidding me?  Even the PA said that they didn't like to give cat scans to children.  Oh really?  Well, lets talk about that a little more shall we?  She never gave us any kind of answer that helped us at all so she went to get the doctor.  The doctor comes in and honestly spoke in some language that I didn't understand so she didn't help us either.

So now we sit there.  What I have failed to tell you is that they said we needed the cat scan because she might have ruptured a membrane between her nose and her brain that could cause infection.  She might have a brain bleed.  She might have a facial fracture.  Seriously, I hate bees.  We continue to sit there.  We have no idea what to do.

Ok, so tell me, as a parent how do you make such a decision?  You either expose your two year old to radiation or you walk away not knowing whether or not she has any of these other issues.  So we sit there.  I cried.  Mark sat there.  He was speechless.  Neither was a very good option, but he could tell that I was not interested in the cat scan.  Remember, she was coherent, awake, not vomiting, and her eyes weren't dilated.  These are all the things that are signs of head trauma.  Yet she had none of them and we were being told to have our 2 year old daughters head and face scanned.  So we sit there.  We keep talking, but we are saying the exact same things.  Mark calls his dad.  Jerry calls his sister, a nurse.  We go back and forth with conversations of what is the right thing to do.  After talking about it we decided not to do the cat scan.  Although, we weren't 100% confident with that decision either, but we had to make one.  We couldn't stay there forever.

Something else I failed to mention is that at this point Julia is her usual self.  Watching cartoons, eating snacks, drinking, talking, climbing around on the bed, and smiling.

Before we can leave we had to sign an "Against Medical Advice" document so that no one could be sued, but before we left they informed us that our insurance might not pay because we didn't do what the doctor told us.  We already feel terrible.  We have been sitting there for over 2 hours just staring at our daughter and now this?  The nurse did follow it up by telling us that  if something were wrong we probably would have already seen something by that point.  That helped a little.

We finally made it home and Julia had 4 or 5 homemade get well cards and we spent the rest of the night staring at her.  I slept with her and periodically poked her to make sure she was still moving and coherent.  We were both exhausted today.

Sometimes I wish that our children came with instruction manuals and tips on what to do in every scenario, but obviously they don't.  Sometimes I wish that I had a direct line up to God to tell me what to do, but I don't have that either.  So all I can pray is that Mark and I make the best decisions that we can with the information that we have at the time.

The little lady seems Ok today.  She doesn't look great, but she acts just fine.  She has helped plant flowers and she even ran around in the water for a bit this afternoon.  I am thankful for that.

I still hate bees.