Daley Ponderings

Yesterday, Noah poked a coat hanger into his eye.  All is well now, but I wanted to post the adventure.  My mom wrote up the story after my phone conversation with her, so I'm going to paste that here to save typing.  I'll interject where I want to add details or comments.  Mom's story will be in italics.

Noah and Jonathan were playing in the bedroom.  I had just said, "As soon as I finish this, we're going downstairs to make smoothies."  60 seconds later: and suddenly Noah screamed a scream of pain.

Heather rushed over, at first suspecting some big-brother activity, but Noah had done it to himself.  His eye was scrunched shut and there was a bloody tear coursing down his cheek.  Heather couldn't see anything because he wouldn't open his eye.  She called the doctor, and although she got through quickly, by the time she got through the receptionist, then the nurse, to the doctor, Noah was nursing calmly.  He finally opened his eyes and Heather could see nothing obviously wrong, though it was tender and he wouldn't let her look too closely.

In hindsight, they would have been better off going to the doctor's office, because all that they ended up doing at the ER was what could have been done there.  But you never know.  The doctor suggested she take him to Children's Hospital, because if there was anything really wrong, they have the better
equipment and it would be better to go directly than to their office and then to the hospital.  (I guess the equipment is why she went to Children's instead of West Penn, which I'm sure is nearer, unless they've made a LOT more progress on the construction than I think they have.)  Nope (: we went to the existing Children's in Oakland.

If you have to go to the ER, it's much better to have two adults.  The parking is "valet parking," but was slow [mostly becuase it was crowded] and confusing, and Heather would loved to have had someone else park while she took Noah right in.  But they made it, and did a lot more waiting after that, though in lots of different rooms -- I guess it seems as if you are making progress that way.  :)

Jonathan told the valet guy he could "turn on the music, and then the antenna will go up."  I signed in at the ER desk, and I was impressed by their consent form.  It said I was consenting to initial treatment and gathering of vitals, and that if there was to be any invasive treatment done, I would have a separate consent form to sign.  And I can't remember if this was actually on the form, but I know it was on signs on the walls, if I was uncomfortable with anything, I can just say so, and talk to the doctors about it. 

After that, we sat in the first waiting room, then they called us up and got patient info and history, and they made an ID band.  She tried to put it on his leg, because that's what they usually do for infants, but his ankle was too fat!  So she put it on his wrist.  Then we went back to the waiting room.  Then we went to get his vitals taken, then to a different waiting room.  Then insurance info was taken, then another waiting room.  This one had lots of toys and a cell phones allowed sign.  That was the longest waiting room wait and we were finally shown to the real ER examining room.

 
Someone -- Heather called her a "student," but a student of what I have no idea. Looked at Noah, and did nothing more than Heather had already done.  (I don't want to think what the insurance company is going to be charged for that.) 

We waited the longest in the room, which was hard because there were no toys.  But we looked at all the interesting stuff in the cupboards, played with the bed rails, and a couple of toys we had brought.  We took a bathroom break.  We sang songs, and Noah was nearly asleep on my shoulder when the doctor came. 

But the doctor, who came later, was wonderful:  confident, competent, gentle, and friendly.  He did the dye-in-the-eye-under-UV-light trick for searching for scratches, and found none.  He said everything looked great.  Noah by this time was his "happiest baby in the world" self, which made it hard to believe much was wrong.  They didn't use the fancy equipment because the doctor said there was no need, they could go home, and just keep and eye on his eye.  :)  His conclusion is that Noah somehow scratched the inside of his eyelid -- though how he managed to do that without scratching the eye is amazing to think about.

We checked out quickly, but waited a very long time for our car to come out of valet.  Total visit time: 3 hours.

Heather is very grateful, not only that Noah is fine, but also that she didn't have to make any decisions about serious procedures with Jon out of town!