Allison Goes to the ER

On Friday night I came home from work to find a pretty cranky baby. Allison had just fed, which generally is my opportunity to play with her and give Diana a bit of a break. That night, however, I noticed that she seemed pretty uncomfortable, and was clutching and pawing very regularly at her right ear. Did she have an ear infection? Maybe she’d gotten water in her ear after a recent bath? I took her temperature by holding a thermometer in her armpit. The thermometer sucks, because it takes about two minutes to actually count up to the final temperature. And guess who doesn’t like having her arm pinned down for those two minutes? She didn’t appear to have any fever, but definitely seemed out of sorts. Her right ear actually felt warmer than her left, and Diana noted that she hadn’t been feeding very well that day.

This was hardly an emergency, but on a Friday night, we figured that if she needed to start taking antibiotics, it would be nice to start that as soon as possible. We weren’t panicked or stressed or anything, but just wanted to nip anything in the bud. We did some quick googling and found a local urgent care center that accepted our insurance.

Here’s an interesting point. I’m not sure the general public knows (or, at the very least, I don’t know) how to use the medical system outside or normal business hours. Do you even bother calling the pediatricians office after hours? Is it ok to call her at home? Is there a difference between “Urgent Care” and “Emergency Room”? My image of Emergency Rooms is gunshot wounds, heart attacks, and very serious things like that. Where do I go for different situations? (We’ll, of course, figure all this out at Allie’s upcoming monthly checkup).

Anyways, we drove to the local hospital, and went in the front door, where we were met by some sort of hospital liaison. We explained our problem, and she said we should go to the Emergency Room. So, we did.

Of COURSE by the time we got there and all checked in, little Allison was her usual angelic self, looking around wide-eyed at her new environment. Some woman was crying in the waiting room. I saw an old man wheeled by us, apparently unconscious. And we were there for a potential ear infection. I felt a little sheepish.

We were eventually seen by a triage nurse. She checked Allie’s blood oxygen by taping something to her big (this is a misnomer) toe. That was cute. I watched jealously as she took her temperature in about one second with a fancy ear thermometer. We need to get one of those. We then were seated in a little exam room, and eventually seen Dr. Smiley-Man. He listened to her breathing, and then looked in both her ears, and pronounced her healthy and fine. He even noted that there isn’t really any correlation with babies that young pawing at their ears and actual ear infections. Thanks for that, Doc. So we were dismissed with a clean bill of health.

In the waiting area, we checked out and paid the co-pay. $100. Ouch. Lesson learned? Check.

Sometime later, I looked behind her ear, and noticed that it looked a little dry and cracked, so we’ve been using a little hydrocortisone back there, and I think that’s helped a lot. She still itches a little at her ear, but I think she’s on the mend.