An ER Visit...

We have been very lucky... we have three kids and before tonight have only visited the ER once...back when K3 was 17 months old and had croup (scary!). Tonight's visit was a toss-up on whether we should go to ER or Urgent Care but the unknown led us to the ER.

Earlier today around 1:00 p.m. K1 complained that his middle finger hurt (NO! Not from overuse!!). I disregarded it as nothing. About an hour later, he came to me and said now it hurt across all of his fingers. I took a closer look and it seemed as if his hand was swelling. I watched it over the next hour and it was extremely warm to the touch and the swelling had definitely increased. I called J at work and his diagnosis was tendonitis either from shoveling yesterday or increased video game playing... nothing to worry about.

A short time later I was on the phone with a college friend and told her about K1's hand... she said to go in to the doctor. That's why we have insurance to help alleviate those fears of the unknown. By 5:00 I was going to take him into Urgent Care but by then his hand though still swollen was no longer warm... it had cooled down considerably. However, he could not bend or move his hand in any way. K1 said it didn't hurt as long as no one touched it (which K3 made the mistake of bumping into it and he almost broke down and cried). We had just finished eating dinner around 7:15 and I brought it up to J again. He started touching it (K1 said it hurt!) and J said that K's hand was ice cold. Something was definitely wrong... swelling, poor circulation, touch sensitive. J called his parents who both work in medical professions but they couldn't offer any advice other than to take him in.

Because of the severity of his condition at the time, J and I both decided to go which meant the girls had to come along as well. We debated whether Urgent Care or ER... but I was worried about worse case scenario of a blood clot and thought I would feel better being at the hospital. We have a wonderful Children's Hospital accessible to us and decided to trust them with our son. We didn't have to wait long... maybe 20 minutes at most before we were seen in Triage and then led to an exam room.

Our doctor was extremely stumped... she ordered x-rays, motrin and a warm soak. All which showed or did nothing. His x-ray showed no breaks. The motrin so far has not brought down the swelling and the warm soak evened out his skin tone a bit (it was really mottled when we went in). Our doc conferred with a veteran doctor and they also consulted with a rheumatologist. They could not come to any conclusion on what was happening. They did rule out a clot based on a strong blood pressure reading and reactive crit (pressure to the cuticle). Our orders are to continue ibuprofen every 6-8 hours for 48 hours and see his pediatrician tomorrow. For now I am resting a bit easier and hope that tomorrow brings some sort of answers or at least a return to normal of his hand.

So based on our excitement and anxiety today and tonight... my 3 good things for today all relate to K1's medical emergency...

1. The ability to have a choice on where to get good medical care for ourselves and our children.
2. Girls being concerned over the pain their brother was feeling.
3. Being reassured that our son did not have a blood clot.