Okay...gotta vent....just a bit...

First of all, why oh why do triage nurses insist upon being complete (insert word here)?? Well, let me start from the beginning...

Poor Dylan woke up at 3 am last night, came into our room crying and then it happened, "blahhhhhhh," throw-up from here to Idaho. Whoa, I am now wide awake. I run into the bathroom just in time to catch the 2nd projectile vomit in the towel. Brandon is still lying in bed and I am yelling at him to GET UP AND HELP ME! MEN! (He really is awesome, but what can we all say for 3 am?).

We bring Dylan downstairs to get him cleaned up to find more puke all around his McQueen bed he has been sleeping on. OH. MY. GOSH.

An hour and 10 or so towels later, we have everything cleaned up, Dylan is just about back to sleep and hopefully all is well.

He wakes up this morning in an okay mood, but still won't eat anything. Tried toast...nope. How about a banana? No thank you. Abby enjoyed them though. Hmmm, well he needs to eat something. I think, "let's try some eggs. They are bland, right?? The vet says to give them to Abby when she is throwing up from eating who the heck knows what..." Jenn says, "Em, I don't know about eggs???" I say, "Oh, he will eat them and he needs food in his belly."

He ate all the eggs, but about an hour later as we are walking out the door, his belly responds with, "NO, YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO YOUR OLDER AND WISER SISTER JENN, I DON'T WANT EGGS!" More puke all over!!!

Okay, now I am becoming the worried mom and remember that Dr. Purdy said one sign of infection is vomiting. So of course I call the doctor right away. This is where Ms. I think I need to be totally rude to this poor mother who is just worried about her son and his amputated finger comes into the story.

First of all, I am so darn sick and tired of waiting on hold with doctor's offices. I would really like to know how much of my life has been wasted doing this in the past year and a half. That is a different post. But, after 20 minutes of hearing, "please stay on the line, there is (different voice comes on line) 1 caller ahead of you, I finally get connected with the nurse. Here is how the conversation went:

Her: Name? Date of birth? (No hello, how are you???)
Me: Dylan Stephens, (his date of birth but I don't want to publish that)
Her: What is the problem?
Me: Well, my son had his finger amputated on Monday and has been throwing up all night and twice this morning. I am concerned about the possibility of infection.
Her: Well, first of all, vomiting is not a sign of infection. (Can you sense her tone?)
Me: Well, my doctor said that it was and to call if there were any problems.
Her: Um, and if it was infected, you would see puss and redness and oozage coming from the wound.
Me: (I wanted to say....NO S*#!@ SHERLOCK! Sorry, I had to put that...) Well, since the cast in extremely thick and covers his whole arm, I can't see the wound so I would have no idea if there was oozage going on and if I could see that oozage was happening, I would have told you that and we would not be worrying about vomit. We would be worried about the fact that puss and redness made it all the way through the mile long cast.
Her: Um, do you have a regular pediatrician. It sounds to me like a stomach bug...you know things ARE going around. You don't want him to get dehydrated. And Dr. Purdy is out of town.
Me: Okay, well, why don't I just call my pediatrician and discuss this with him (and I should have inserted her..."since you are apparently of zero help to me and obviously I am just stupid and you just have somewhere else to be. I hate to bother you...")

Now, that is not verbatim, but close enough. Again, why oh why are triage nurses so dang rude? We have truly been blessed with the best of the best doctors and surgeons, but I tell ya, the nurses and office staff just need to go. I get so frustrated dealing with them. This is why my pediatrician's personal cell is on speed dial.

Anyway, luckily no more vomit through-out the day and he did eat a bit of applesauce and toast. Hopefully it was just a stomach thingy, but I am NEVER going to apologize for being an over-worried, ask a million questions, I want to speak with someone that cares, type of Mom. That's my job and I take pride in doing it well and if Ms. I think I need to be totally rude to this poor mother who is just worried about her son and his amputated finger , has a problem with that, then too darn bad. Next time she can deal with my sister Kim instead of me. : )

Thanks for listening to me vent and let's hope for a better tomorrow.