Saturday, December 20, 2008

Abby Joins the Emergency Room Club; Pete One-Ups Her

December saw the Willis family mark some medical treatment milestones.

After a pair of scissors that Abby had used at a church activity somehow found their way into her knee, she got to experience her first trip to the emergency room and her first set of stitches. This is especially significant because Abby, to that point, had been the only Willis child (exempting Jacob) entirely unfamiliar with ER life. We even wrote about it in a previous entry. Luckily, Jen was with her when the event transpired, no doubt mitigating the trauma (at least a little) and she is now no worse for the wear (well, except for the scar).

Not to be outdone, Pete this month became the first Willis child to stay overnight at the ER. He came down with a case of croup on a Friday night, rested most of the day on Saturday, but experienced difficulty breathing after waking up from a late afternoon nap. Although his breathing quickly improved once he received a nebulizer steroid treatment at the hospital, the doctors wanted to keep him overnight for monitoring. This was no inconvenience for Pete. Jen and I switched shifts (she had taken him to the ER -- I don't deal with that kind of thing very well) and Pete and I spent the night in a nice big room within the pediatric ER wing (a nice facility) watching movies and cartoons late into the evening and being waited upon by a conscientious medical staff. After he checked out fine in the morning, he still didn't want to leave. Why would he?

To all of you doctors and nurses out there, Thanks.

Abby's Knee -- post-scissor attack


Pete in his "alien mask" that the nurses let him bring home.

2 comments:

Jake said...

I'm amazed at the stitches your kids keep falling into. You need to hit up one of the physicians in your neighborhood (I assume you have physicians in the neighborhood) and have them do the stitches on the kitchen table, just for the convenience of it.

Kristian had croup this past week and I almost took him into the ER, but instead I watched him through the night and took him out to the garage twice to clear his airways then called in some steroids to the pharmacy when they opened in the morning. I'm wondering if my kids will be getting the type of medical attention they need in the future.

Liz said...

Hope everyone has recovered from their mishaps.