Tuesday, August 19, 2008

tagging y'all...

my friend Mike has this post... and it motivated me to tag all of you... I want to know (to the best of your recollections, cuz I'm hoping that I am not alone in the fact that I might actually have been to the ER so many times as a mom that I have forgotten one or two) how many times have you gone to the ER for a kid emergency, please feel free to elaborate with editorials on weirdest, most unnecessary, stupidest ER staff, best most awesome, etc. -- seriously they have half grown kids and they just went for the FIRST TIME after 11 years -- I simply don't think that's actually possible, they must have been flashed in the eyes with one of those Men In Black penlight things that makes you forget what you've seen after all the other ER visits... you can't have 3 children and not actually have a bench at the ER named for you...

Okay, and this is freaky and scarey all at the same time... one of the first times I took my daughter to the ER at the good old "family hospital" where we all spent our ER visits as kids, my mom met me there, and the Triage nurse ACTUALLY RECOGNIZED MY MOM from all the visits we kids had over the years. Yes the triage nurse was actually 157 years old and hadn't retired yet, I think her secret (from the sounds of her voice) was that she smoked a half dozen packs a day and quite possibly had been injected with formadehyde or something.

I'm going with 12 in 18 years off the top of my head... I'll bet I forgot some... also in addition to that we had at least four -- two that actually have stories attached during office hours visits to the doctor -- one for stitches in the head and the other for beans shoved up the nose. If that had happened not during office hours we would be at 16 in 18 years, plus a couple forgotten, works out to about 1 emergent care visit annually. Stupidest/Biggest waste of $$ -- son convinced me his foot was broken, and then proceeded to jump up and down and skip around on it for the doctor after we waited in the nasty ER to be seen for like 1.5 hrs. Worst care -- Children's Hospital - sad but true, only one visit ever, will not ever go back to their ER -- maybe long term care rocks there, but I will not ever willingly step foot in their ER again. Best Care -- there really isn't one, honestly every visit has had some stupid facet to it that just makes it impossible to give any of them "best" -- grossest -- either the night that the prisoner who was handcuffed to his gurney pissed on the police officer in front of my 5 year-old, complete with some really colorful words that she probably would have eventually learned at home, but hadn't heard yet, getting bitten by a mosquito in the ER waiting room (ewwwwww can you say blood born disease -- EEEEEEEEEEEK) or the night when I took my youngest for her broken nose received at softball practice so she was in softball stuff, and this 112 year old man came in, also dressed for softball with his hand all wrapped in what looked like a t-shirt... I was comforting my daughter telling her she wasn't stupid for getting hurt at softball, look at him, he's probably been playing forever and he's hurt -- he proceeded, while I was away from her for 12 seconds to show her how he had accidentally nearly completely amputated his index finger when a ball came over the back of the glove (he sticks his index finger out the little hole) -- btw, he was actually 77 years old and still playing COMPETITIVE co-ed softball, his granddaughter brought him in, and plays on the same team as him!

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