the ER...

we experienced our first ever trip to the ER last week and it was for our youngest child.

ayla had me quite in a panic for a few hours last week. the morning of she seemed a little off, extra clingy, wouldnt eat much, super whiny... she had a cold so i chalked it up to her not feeling good and wasn't even worried about her. i did give her Tylenol before her nap because i knew how tired she was and how horrid she had been sleeping the nights previous. i woke her up from her nap, which is normal, the girl sleeps 3 hours or more if you let her. she clearly didnt not want to be woken up. she was mad. super mad. once the crying started it would not stop. around 6 i started to worry. she never cries for that long. i started thinking of ear infections or the flu. her crying got so so so bad and it was clear that she was in a lot of pain. i even called whit to bring addi over to see if she could calm her down. she wouldn't walk or move. she was sweating and red and she kept closing her eyes. i started to think she broke her leg or her hip or something! when addi didn't cheer her up and she still wouldn't stop screaming i knew we had a problem on our hands. so i ran her to primary health with a few minutes to spare before they closed at 8. meanwhile chase hadnt been home yet. he came and took tegan to basketball practice, then stopped to get pizza. so he is thinking im nuts and she isnt that bad. but oh she was.. even my sister would say so. anywho, the primary health doctor checked her all out and found nothing wrong until he checked her stomach. it was hard as a rock and clearly distended. he seemed to start to panic (maybe i made that up in my head, we will never know) but he said it was VERY serious for infants stomachs to be like this because their intestines and bowels can twist easily since they grow so quickly. that is when the panic set it. i knew she had eaten a rock, or a lego, or swallowed a penny, or seriously, all three options at once knowing her and her love to eat anything but food. so he said we needed to go to the ER immediately. so to the ER we went. i called chase. he called my mom. she went and grabbed the big kids and he meet me there. she was still screaming and yelled "all done" at anyone who walked in the room. they did a chest x ray, an abdomen x ray, and also inserted a catheter. maybe it was a UTI. no one knew. at some point, i don't remember when they came in a gave her ibuprofen and i kid you not, almost 45 minutes later she was a new woman. she was laughing and smiling again, she was walking around! and the tears had stopped (FINALLY) and as we were sitting there waiting for the doctor to come back with the results, she had the worst gas. the longest gas. it was so gross. and they do not make ER rooms large enough to combat the crap she was putting out. sorry ayla, but it is true. so we laughed about how funny it would be if all this was just from a belly ache. then the doctor came back and sure enough. her insides were full of gas. i don't know how she got plugged up and i don't know what finally released it but when it finally started to come out she completely change. in her defense and ours, he did say it can be crippling to have that much gas inside your body, and that it is truly painful if you ever experience it. so we went to the ER, we got every test and x-ray done possible and it was all for gas.