Christmas Eve was definitely not what I planned it to be this year. Declan has been sick for a few days - cough and not sleeping very well. I thought he would get over it on his own and so I didn't bring him to the doctor the day before Christmas Eve. That always turns out well, doesn't it? He woke up on Christmas Eve morning after a horrible night's sleep (maybe the 3rd in a row) and wasn't any better than the day before - maybe a little worse. He wasn't his normal happy self but didn't seem to have a fever so I wasn't too worried. He woke up after his nap and was warm for sure. My thermometer said 99.8. Since my neighbor was over with her daughter, I decided to take Declan into the ER. Monica said she would take the kids and order dinner - we were going to eat Chinese together anyway. Declan and I packed up and headed out.
We got to the ER and got all checked in really quickly. About 10 minutes later we were in triage and the nurse took his temp - 103!!!! The nurse immediately freaked out and told me he needed Tylenol AND Motrin right away to get his temperature down. Two lessons from that - 1) my thermometer sucks and 2) you can take tylenol and motrin together - who knew? Declan is the worse medecine taker and promptly gagged on the tylenol and threw up all over himself, me and the floor of the triage room. If you want a nurse to really warm up to you try bringing a sick little baby in and have him puke everywhere. The entire staff was super nice to us - they even brought Declan a little shirt to wear and gave him a little bath.
After a few minutes we got to see the doctor and she ordered a chest x-ray. They came to get us and poor Declan had to be strapped into a plastic tube with his arms over his head for the x-ray. Needless to say, he did NOT like that and was very happy to be released and to get a popsicle as a reward. Thankfully, it was not pneumonia but his chest looked bad enough that they sent us home with a steroid to help him out. The steroid seems to be helping but totally prevented him from sleeping at all today. He went full steam from 7 am until 7:30 pm when I forced him into bed. Lord help me if this child doesn't nap for the next 3 days!!
We were discharged and headed home after only about an hour and a half. The ER at Fort Campbell is the fastest ER ever! I have never been there longer than 2 hours! We got home and retrieved the other kids. I tried to get Declan to eat but he didn't want anything more than a few Goldfish. After a bath he seemed a little revived and had a good time opening presents. We open the kids' presents to each other and Mommy and Daddy's present to them on Christmas Eve. Santa brings everything else the next morning. They all had fun playing and headed off to bed happily, ready to wait for jingle bells on the roof! I collapsed on the couch, ate a plate of Chinese food and got to work. Luckily, there wasn't much to do since I had done 90% of everything in the week leading up. It's a good thing or it would have been a much later night!
Declan and me in the ER in his new hospital garb:
Getting ready to open presents!
love this mess!
Santa came!
