It's not like it is in the movies!!

When I walked through the door of the ER at my fastest pace possible with 3 little ducklings trailing and one in my arms last night I expected to feverishly yell "My 11 month old is having an allergic reaction" and get a response like this:

Or like this:

Or even this:

But it was more like this:

Well honestly, there was a waiting room full of people but the 2 people behind the desk and the slew of nurses flowing out of the back room chit chatting it up with the front desk guys were less than interested in my emergency.  I walked back out the door, looked up and came back in and said "Uhhhhhhh...this is the EMERGENCY room right?  Cuz I'm having a fucking emergency!"

Apparently a massive and rapidly spreading rash is not a big deal as long as your baby is still being cute and flirting with the female docs.  When I say rapidly spreading, I mean from only in the diaper region to his entire chest, back, legs and most of his arms and cheeks within 20 minutes.

There is a SLIGHT chance I might have walked into this place with a chip on my shoulder, seeing as how I've had 2 bad experiences there and have only been to the hospital...uhm...2 times.  Yeah.  Not a great track record with me.

The 1st time, I was having an anaphylactic reaction and my doc called ahead to tell the ER I was on my way with chest pains and difficulty breathing.  After letting me sit for 5 hours (until my pulse ox came back up to normal) the ER doc tells me he thinks I have a rib out of alignment and that's why my chest hurt.  Uhm...what would make you think that?  They didn't do any xrays or anything like that!  Then gives me a chiropractor's phone number and a script for Vicodin!  :headdesk:

The 2nd time, I suddenly popped up with a rash while pregnant and the doc said to go get checked out to make sure it wasn't PUPPS (super itchy belly rash for those of you who've never been pregnant).  While I'm there, and 16 weeks pregnant, the nurse was having trouble finding little man's heart beat on the doppler.  I ask her to see if someone else can find it.

She leaves.  Then she comes back in the room 10 minutes later and says, "The doc says that what you have is just contact dermatitis so that wouldn't effect the baby anyway and there's no one else available to do a doppler right now."  I go pregnant woman postal and flip my lid  because only a few months earlier I had lost a little belly bean at 10 weeks.  I tell the woman to go get another person to do the doppler.  She leaves, another nurse comes back.

This nurse tells me there is no one from labor and delivery available to come down to do a doppler.  WHAT?  I say, "I have a doppler at home!  Give me the fucking thing!  I'll do it myself!"  Of course no no no, that's hospital equipment and blah blah policy blah blah.  So I say, "Fine, I have good insurance, you have given me reason to suspect I may have miscarried, take me for an ultrasound."  Of course that didn't happen either.  What did happen was me being gently walked out of the hospital by a very nice security guard while cussing openly about how incompetent they are.  I got home and got the Moose beat on the monitor right away.  Go figure, I was right, totally incompetent ER staff that night and a GQ wanna be doc who was more worried about his hair and fake bake orange tan than making sure my  baby was still ok.  Fucker.

So when my son's pediatrician said last night to get him to an urgent care facility and not to drive the 45 minutes to my ER of choice (they know me so well...) I had no choice but to swallow my pride and take him to the hospital who's reputation is good with the media (thanks to the NIU shooter) but not so good with locals.  I know one woman who says she "wouldn't take her dog there to die"!

I walk in and get no  only  and what I was really hoping for was a little bit o' but instead I got to sit in the waiting room trying to explain to my 3 healthy kids that NO, THIS   (Adult Swim, for those of you without a pulse) is not really cartoons for kids because the 2 male nurses sitting at the reception desk were so busy dishing about Grey's Anatomy that they didn't have time to be bothered with changing the channel or finding us a God damn triage nurse to check us in.  They did however have time to comment that my son looked "just fine".  OH GOOD!  The flunky who has to work reception because he didn't make the 'doctor cut' thinks he LOOKS fine so we have nothing to worry about.

After a nice long hour of waiting, whining, and spending a small fortune on Gatorade because the kids were parched (that's what happens after bedtime...the gremlins need water) they finally found a room for us.  Of course, by this time my husband had made it there...thankfully the whole herd didn't have to hang at the hospital any longer.  It would be my luck that I'd have to make a 9pm ER trip the one and only night in the last 2 months that my husband has to work late.  That's my life.

So as it turns out, my poor little guy had a reaction to his meds (duh, we already covered that) but this type of reaction is kind of weird.  It was a yeast reaction...not a  yeast infection...a yeast reaction.  So we have ointments and new meds and Benadril and extra baths.  We've been having the joy of free-ballin time because the rash is worst near his bum & junk because the meds were also kind enough to turn his pee so acidic that in the 1 hour between his normal diaper changes-it burned his skin (also a reaction from the meds but somewhat more rare).  And what this all adds up to is a really long last 24 hours.

My personal favorite part was when the little guy pooped on the floor and before I could get across the room, began Van Gogh-ing with it in a Starry Night sort of swirly sky fashion.  I yelled at my sister on the phone "I gotta go, Moose is playing with poo!"  Poo?  Who says that, I mean other than Elliott on Scrubs?!?  I'm not sure what was worse, him pooing on the floor, playing with it, me getting it all over my shirt (which by the way, I totally didn't notice for like an hour), or the fact that while I was bathing him in the kitchen sink, the dog licked said impressionist poo painting up completely.  Gag!

I'm so looking forward to the remainder of this evening.  Perhaps we can avoid any more pee or poo mishaps...probably not.  In the mean time I have my Clorox Clean-Up and paper towels locked and loaded.
A special thank you to my dog for for me but I got this covered!