ER visit

B wins the prize for the first kid to require an emergency room visit. He should definitely not be proud of this. He was playing in the hallway with one of G's soft dolls. I went down the hall to his room to put a blanket away and we I cane back he was choking on something. I stuck my finger in his mouth to try and get it out. I felt it in the back of his throat and then he started chocking more so I turned him upside down and patted him on the back. Then he swallowed it. Then he crawled away and kept playing. I have no idea what it was. My best guess is that it was some plastic part of a toy but really I have no idea. I called his Dr. and explained to the nurse what happened. She asked questions such as "Did he turn any colors?" "Did he stop breathing?" No he did not. Then she said that because I didn't know what it was she would talk to the Dr. and then call me back with further instructions. She did and said that the Dr. said we should take him to the ER. Not just any ER but one with a pediatric radiologist on call. She gave me 2 choices: Texas Children's which is downtown and St. Luke's in the Woodlands. We opted for St. Luke's so we wouldn't have to fight downtown traffic.

Now for the timeline. It all started at about 2:30 in the afternoon. By the time the nurse had called me back and Troy had gotten home. It was about 4:00. We dropped G off at a friend's house. (A big thank you to the P family!) After following the wrong blue and white H sign we finally found the ER around 5:00. They were definitely in no big hurry. Then there was the whole debate of the x-ray. The first nurse that I called said they probably wouldn't x-ray because I thought it was plastic which wouldn't show up. When we got to the ER the registration nurse there started to order an x-ray and then someone told her not to because of the above mentioned reason. When we finally got to see the actual Dr. he asked us a few questions and touched his tummy for about 2 seconds said it 'felt good' (whatever that means) and then ordered an x-ray (just in case there was some metal and they needed to fish it out). That was at about 6:00. At about 6:15 the radiologist came in and it took all of 5 min to get the x-ray done.

Finally at 7:00 we asked someone if they could check on the x-ray. About 7:45 the Dr. came back in and said there was nothing on the x-ray and that we would just have to check his diapers until it passed and to come back if he started throwing up. Then he left and said he would be back to check us out. Someone (not the Dr.) came back at about 8:15 gave us a paper on chocking hazards and told us we could go. We went and picked up G and got home about 9:15. What a way to spend the afternoon/evening. G had lots of fun though and I have some pictures that were taken while she was at the P house that I will post later.

So basically we paid $100 for them to tell us he probably swallowed something plastic, tell us to watch for it to come out and give us a handout on chocking hazards. All of which we felt pretty confident about. I know it is better to be safe than sorry and following the Dr.'s advice is generally the thing to do but what a waste of $100!

B was such a trooper. He did cry (ok scream) for about the last half hour but that was only because he was practically starving. We had to wait for the x-ray results before I could feed him. After we got to the car and I fed him he was his happy go-lucky self again. He slept the whole way home.

So now we wait and search through poop to find the mysterious object that he swallowed. Diaper count so far : A-2, T-1. Stay tuned for the results!