Follow Up

A few days after the ER visit, I took Emmett to his follow up with our pediatrician. I had all the kids with me, and Harrison was still having an extremely bad sore throat, so when the doctor asked how everyone was doing, I told him about Harrison and how he still wasn't doing better.

Here is what I found out:

The doctor told me that teenagers can get a micoplasma infection that can cause a severe sore throat that won't go away. So he put Harrison on a zpac. Before he was even finished with the antibiotic (that you only take for five days) his sore throat was completely gone. Hallelujah! To be honest, I questioned the other doctor's assessment that Harrison might have mono, for the main reason that he just wasn't tired enough. With mono, it doesn't matter if you want to be awake, you seriously just sleep, all day and night, and it still isn't enough.

Anyway, glad that was taken care of.

Now on to Emmett.

When I saw Emmett's xray it looked very similar to the xray he ended up with last year when they told me he also had pneumonia, and then the pediatrician really felt like he had RSV because of what the xray looked like.

Well, we knew he didn't have RSV because that test came back negative, but when our doctor listened to Emmett's lungs at his appointment three days later, they sounded clear. Based on the xray, he felt that Emmett had a different virus, that is actually worse than RSV, but shows up on an xray as very similar to RSV. So, we are very blessed that it didn't affect his breathing worse and have to be hospitalized.

By the time he had his follow up appointment, the retracted breathing was all gone, and his respirations per minute were back to normal. So, those are all really good things.

Even though he ended up probably not needing to go to the ER, I am still glad that I took him. I always feel like the ER is a double edged sword. You don't want anything to be really wrong, but when it is, you feel justified for making the trip...but you hate that something was wrong. If nothing is wrong, that is wonderful, but you feel like you just wasted a ton of money going to the ER.

In Emmett's case though, he really was sick, and how bad would I have felt if I didn't go and he ended up not breathing and dying because I was too stubborn to take him in? Yep, I would much rather pay the ER bill and have peace of mind in knowing that I did everything I could as a parent to help him be as healthy as possible.

My Venting of Hospital Bills

A while ago we got a bill saying our payment was late. We have multiple bills combined together so that we just have one medical bill payment, and then we have the payment automatically taken out of our account. This is great when it works....except when it doesn't.

We kept getting a bill telling us that we hadn't paid. Baffled, Shane called the billing service. He was told that our money had been paying, but to an account that was paid in full. Logically, my brain thought, so why doesn't the money just go to the next bill in line?

No no, my friends, that would be TOO EASY!! No. It is not set up like that with this medical billing service. Once the bill is paid, it just keeps paying to that account until you realize it isn't paying down the amount. Then YOU have to call and tell them to switch it to the next account. Because, I know, like you, I have nothing else to do but call about bills all the time. It's so fun!

Now, counter that with a different hospital system...

We had to go to a hospital in a different system, we also had multiple bills, and we got a letter in the mail, telling us... "We noticed that you have multiple bills from our facility. To make it easier for you we combined all the bills together so you only have one payment until they are paid off. If you would like us not to do this please call..."

WOW.

So much easier!

I wish our other billing thing did the same thing. It's such a headache.

Kickin

So, recovering from this surgery has been a little more difficult than I originally anticipated. Hopefully I am on the upswing though. I have raised it from the 1-2 level to the 3-5 level. ;)

Thinking about the surgery has made me wonder though, because they gave me versed in the hallway when I was on the gurney, or as they like to call it "happy juice", and remember NOTHING about the operating room or anything, and it makes me wonder if that's what it's like for most people.

When I'm working in the operating room it always seems like the patient is fairly with it. I mean, their eyes are open, they move to the operating bed like you tell them to, and they "appear" awake. They respond to questions you ask them. Sometimes they even ask me questions.

Now it makes me wonder if they are all loopy on versed! I will have to ask one of the anesthesiologists that I work with. I know that they don't usually give c-section patients versed because they like to have them remember their baby being born.

Anyway, it does make me wonder!

Sometimes I wonder...

So, it's kind of interesting how when you have a job in a certain field it can affect your way of thinking in other areas.

I remember when I was growing up that my mom was a nurse and worked at a hospital and my dad was an engineer for autoliv (which manufactures airbags) so we knew all the statistics on car accidents and why it was crucial to wear a seatbelt and to have everyone in the vehicle properly restrained... think health class/driver's ed video magnified by a thousand.

Well, since I became a surgical tech back in 2003 things become much more apparent in my brain, things that I may have thought about, but not really focused on. Things like, what happens to your body in a car accident, motorcycle crash, and how you sit in the vehicle would affect what injuries you have if you get in a wreck.

This only becomes more obvious when we drive down the freeway and pass a vehicle with someone in the front passenger seat with their feet up on the dash. I can't say that I've ever really understood this even before I thought of the consequences because it really doesn't look all that comfortable to me...(Shane feels the same way.)

The last time we were passing a vehicle with someone sitting like this we even talked about it. How if you got in an accident the force of the crash would basically force your legs upward into your face in a v-shape and possibly forcing the dash through your legs. Sounds fun yeah? Broken spine, broken legs...yeah...good times.

The excitement never ends....

So there have been a few things that I married into when I married Shane. Shane's family is very exciting and boistrous and loud, and my family is more on the quiet, serious, side...to an extent. I don't feel either one is "better" than the other. They both have their pro's and con's.

Shane's brothers and Shane are all very creative people. They see something, they want to have it, so they decide to make it. Why buy what you can figure out and make yourself? Right? So, sometimes this creative gene leads to more accident/injury prone behavior.

My brothers had their moments too, believe me. (Two of my brothers in particular but we won't name names... ;)

Anyway, let's take yesterday as an example... Shane's oldest brother apparently made a motocross racetrack in his backyard. Ooo, neato! So, of course, Shane's two younger brothers felt the need to duplicate this. I've learned a lot about making a motocross racetrack, that I am sure I will file away into the useless information pile in my brain, but I will never forget it!

So, here's what happened. They made the track YESTERDAY during the day, and then decided to race on it. Can you imagine what I am going to write? Do you think this sounds like a good idea? My hubby didn't think it sounded like a super wonderful idea either.

The inevitable happened. Shane's next younger brother's bike's front tire got caught in the soft dirt, flipped him over the handlebars and then rolled over him. I guess we should be grateful they were wearing motorcycle helmets, shirts, pants, and motorcycle boots. Still, it quite effectively broke his femur all the way through. I was also quite glad that it wasn't a compound fracture (going through the skin).

No, I didn't actually see it happen. No one was videotaping the experience for future viewing on youtube, which they were all quite bummed about. Even the injured brother. I know! So they videotaped him getting put on the ambulance instead. I told
Shane if I got injured he was NOT ALLOWED to videotape ANYTHING!!

I can now honestly say that I have been on the receiving end of a 911 call. We were out in the boonies and I was quite impressed at how quickly they came. The police showed up within 4 min the first responders in 5. I thought that was pretty amazing.

So, for future reference in case you need this information, here are some tips:

1. Don't make your own motocross racetrack... :)
2. If you make one, let the jumps cure until they are hard enough to ride on.
3. If you wreck and injure yourself DO NOT TAKE OFF YOUR HELMET!! I know, sounds simple, but you forget these things in the stress of the moment. By the time my hubby and I got out there they had already taken his helmet off.

And if you are asking yourself if my brother-in-law learned his lesson...well... in the hospital he asked his mom if she could sew his motorcycle pants back together (they had to cut them off). Nuf said.

When the family minus the injured brother got back from the hospital they asked me about the type of surgery he would have to have. See, it CAN be useful to have a surgical tech in the family! ;)