Another first for our family occurred yesterday: our first trip to the ER for one of the kids. As far as ER trips are concerned this one was not too bad. Jack has just badly sprained his arm, no break or dislocation, so we got off easy. Here's what happened: He was outside with Darrel yesterday and Darrel closed the overhead garage door. Jack saw something he still wanted out of the garage, Darrel was holding Jack's hand and prevented him from running under the door and getting crushed (well, technically there's a mechanism to prevent this but you know what I mean). Jack then threw himself to the ground in a fine temper tantrum that only 2 year olds can do so well, while Darrel was holding his hand. According to the doctor these injuries are quite common in this age group. I'm only surprised it doesn't happen more often, who of us has not had one of our kids violently drop to the ground in protest over something or other?! So today will be a TV watching, rest up, take pain killers, kind of day around here. It's really too bad because our Bishop delivered the sand for Jack's new sandbox last night. It's sitting out there, pristine in the sandbox. Begging to be groomed into roads, hills, tunnels, and open pit mines.
While I am indeed grateful that we have access to emergency medical treatment in this country, and last nights escapade didn't cost us $1000, I do have to wonder a bit at a system where we have to wait 3.5 hours in an ER just to have a couple of x-rays and be proclaimed ok. Yes, I know I should not complain too loudly. We were at the Fort Saskatchewan hospital, which is quite small and very fast comparatively. If we had been in the city I'm sure we'd still be sitting in the waiting room. But they were not busy, no ambulances came in the whole time we were there, most of the other patients had driven themselves in, definitely not cardiac arrests or severe trauma cases. At Jack's intake the attendant plainly wrote on the form, x-ray and examine, and 2 hours into our experience a nurse came and asked when we had our x-rays done and I said, "we haven't, we've been just waiting in this treatment room." She said, "oh", like ooops and then it still took another 45 minutes to go take the x-rays. For an Emergency department with 6 treatment rooms, and at one point three doctors on duty, things sure didn't seem to move very fast. I know I wasn't privy to all the behind the scenes stuff, but the wannabe efficiency expert in me says there is definitely some room for improvement there.
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4 comments:
Wow I have missed alot in a week. Eric looks so different in some of the pics- did he grow so much in 7 days? The boys are looking adorable as usual.
I read your post about weekends- this is something for "Dropped Threads" as evidently I am not the only one who see's everything fall to chaos on the weekends.
Oh and too bad about the honey- good thing you can laugh about it. The honey lives on in blog and photo.
ER trips are always full of fun, we declared it our second home. Though we have a bag with wondercolor paper and amrkers special for those trips. Since there is nothing to keep your children occupied with, yes I think there is room to improve myself. At least it was a minor trip and not a heart stopping one. Take care little Jack and hopefully you'll be back to your self soon.
Congrats on the ER visit, I think with young (and older) boys, trips to the ER are manditory. Jacob is 3 now and whenever he gets hurt or just a little scratched/bruised he wants to go see our family doctor. But a day of relaxing and cuddling your little ones is always special.
Your family looks happy and you look great.
Trips to the ER seem to be a rite of passage. You're not really a parent until you've spent an evening in the ER.
Glad to hear Jacks hand is ok. Hope you enjoyed your "lazy" day(if there is such a thing with small children); We all need one every now and then.
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