First ER trip

Well, it was going to happen - that is an inevitable part of raising these little people. I just hoped it would happen a little later in life! Although, in reality, it is sort of amazing it hasn't happened yet as fearless as Keeley is.

We spent last night at the ER with Keeley because Star (Mom's dog) tried to wake her up last night by pawing at her face through the crib rails. Unfortunately for Star, Keeley did wake but was screaming, not playful. The screaming, injured baby just made Star have to go straight back outside which I am sure was not her plan with the original playful swat.

Here is a recap of the weekend. Kelly's birthday is Monday so he took Friday off and we played together all day as a family. Mom volunteered to watch Keeley all weekend and we boarded the dogs so we could have a nice relaxing, responsibility free weekend before Kayden gets here. Responsibility never ends when you are a parent I'm discovering!

We didn't leave town because I'm really too far along to travel anywhere safely or comfortably. The weekend started out wonderfully. Kelly and I got to go to dinner, we watched a late movie, slept in until 10:30 (three and half hours later than we can any other day of our life!), went to the Dallas World Aquarium, wandered around the West End, ate dinner, went to another restaurant when we decided we wanted dessert, and then finally made our way home to watch game 2 of the Stars playoff run. It was a FABULOUS weekend. I don't miss for a minute having that life all the time because Keeley fills our life with so much more joy and entertainment than I ever could have imagined. However, it was nice to be able to do all of that and not have to worry about naps or a daughter that only eats milk and berries.

Mom called at 9:10 to say that Star had scratched Keeley's eye while she was asleep and that we needed to come get her to have it looked at - abruptly ending our weekend unfortunately.

By the time I got down there, all the Acute Kid and urgent care places were closed and we were forced to go to the emergency room. In retrospect, had I known how the night was going to turn out, we would have taken Keeley home and gone to bed last night. Then today, when everyone was well-rested, we would have gone at 12 to the acute kids care place up here. That, however, is not how the mom in me responded when I got to Mom's house and saw that the white part of Keeley's eye was red in the corner. I wanted it looked at NOW. My daughter's beautiful blue eyes are very important!

So, I called Kelly and told him that we were going to the ER and he met us there. (Random side note - neither one of us had gas. What are the chances of that? I assure you, that will not happen again because it was an unexpected twist in a stressful evening). I checked in to the ER with Keeley at 10:30. Keeley (as we all know) fights sleep. She'd gone to bed 2 hours later than normal at Mom's on Friday and still woke up at 6:30. Since 6:30am, she had slept for a total of 1.5 hours by the time we checked in to the ER at 10:30. That is 1.5 hours in 16 hours of high energy awake time.

At midnight, they finally called us back. Keeley was quite the source of entertainment in the waiting room. She was flirting with people, giggling, taking her hat on and off, etc. Not acting tired in the least. We went straight back to a room and within 10 minutes, a doctor came in and told us what was going to happen. He said that the white part of the eye is not as serious of an injury as the colored part but still prone to infection. He said they were going to come back and put some drops in her eye to numb it but that they would sting for about a minute and then they were going to put some dye in it to make sure that the cornea didn't get scratched (they look with a black light at that point). He assured me that the actual pain only lasted a minute but that Keeley would hate all of it because we had to hold her down and we couldn't explain it.

I was happy. It was only midnight and the exam sounded like it would just take a minute and we'd already seen the doctor. I figured he would go get the stuff and come back. I was wrong. Keeley played and stomped her feet playfully on the different colored tiles and flirted with all the nurses and the other patients.

At 1:05, I went to the nurses station to ask how much longer it would take because we were going to leave if we weren't seen soon. It wasn't that I didn't care, I just figured that my daughter's sleep was going to help the healing and we could go to another place in less than 11 hours. The doctor early acted as if we were just checking as a precaution so my "mom panic" was greatly lowered. I wasn't annoyed when I talked to the nurse, I just wanted to know. She told me she'd get me seen in just a second. She held true to her word because less than five minutes later, the doctor came back to do the exam. Keeley didn't like it and screamed really hard. Fortunately, by that point she'd been awake for 19.5 hours with only 1.5 hours of sleep so she wasn't strong enough to fight much. Good news, the cornea wasn't scratched. He left the room at 1:15 telling us that we needed to use an antibiotic in the eye (since it was a dog scratch) and follow up with an ophthalmologist.

1:30 - We are STILL waiting for discharge papers and have now been at the hospital for 3 hours. I go to the nurses station again (yes, I was being that parent) and ask if Keeley really needed to still be there or if I could take her home so she could go to sleep and let Kelly take care of the discharge stuff. This was a great option since Kelly had driven down separately. She went to check with the doctor and came back saying we could leave.

Keeley slept the whole way home and didn't even wake up enough to hug my body when I got her out of her car seat. That has NEVER happened. Kelly left about 20 minutes later and went to fill her prescription. I put Keeley in her crib at 2am. What time did she wake up this morning? 8:30. She just doesn't have it in her to sleep late!

Humorous things about our trip:
* I had to hold her all three times I went to the restroom for the entire time because public restrooms are gross. Why couldn't I let Kelly watch her? Because that resulted in instant crying.

* She acted like she was getting tortured when they put her hospital bracelet on her. She also acted as though her hand was then broken. She wouldn't use it and carried it at a funny angle or held it to her chest. Periodically she would look from one wrist to the other in confusion.

* She hates stethoscopes and we had to hold her hands down because any time the doctor or nurse got it close to her chest she batted it away angrily. I don't even know why they had to use those. She was clearly okay and the EYE was the issue.

* She insisted on wearing her hat most of the time - or making Kelly wear it which she thought was so funny. Everyone else thought it was pretty funny too :-)

* She was happy the entire time we were there (minus the exams) and everyone she flirted with commented on how happy she was and what a good baby she was being. Every other baby or kid that was in the ER (and there were way too many) was dead asleep in a stroller or their mother's arms. Not my Keeley. She was going strong!

* The doctor told us we only have to put the ointment in Keeley's eye 3 times a day for the next 7 days. He clearly does not have children because that is not going to be an easy task!

* We realized we don't have Keeley's social committed to memory. Fortunately, they didn't push us on that.

* Kelly learned he cannot listen to Stars games on the radio because they did horribly during his drive to the ER but ended up winning 5-2 (although we didn't know that until we got home).

All in all, not the weekend we had planned but a good life experience. Keeley woke up wanting to play with her ball and go outside or ride in her red car so I think she's fine! This is her only injury.