Trip to the ER

On Tuesday Erika went to Tiffany's babysitter for the day since my daycare took the day off to be with her Sister-in-Law that just had a baby the night before. Well our company was switching phones to Sprint so all managers had to go pick out their new phones and get everything switched over so I just caught a ride with a bunch of other fellow co-workers to Sprint and left my purse (and phone) in the car. After we finished shopping we had to go to RC Willey and pick up a bunch of furniture for our CEO's new apartment and while there I checked my phone and I had a ton of missed calls from Trent's Mom and sister. My first thought was that something happened to Trent at work...my worst fear...when I called Tiffany she said that the babysitter talked to her and that Erika had like 3-4 bloody noses and it wasn't stopping.

I quickly had everyone wrap things up at RC Willey and we headed back to work and then I got in my car and headed home. Trent's Mom went and picked up Erika for me from the babysitters and got Erika to calm down and stop bleeding. I think Erika was just freaking out because she didn't know the babysitter really and then she saw lots of blood and she got dirty...and it just went all down hill from there!

She had a couple more once we got her home and she would be happy and running around and then the next minute she would be totally pale and wheezing. I called the on-call pediatrician and he said with a child that small he would take them to the ER after 4 nose bleeds. Well by now we were on like #9 so Trent and I got in the car and headed to the ER in Provo. This was like at midnight.

We got all checked in and thats when we found out from Trent's neice that her and the other kids were playing karate and Erika got kicked in the face and thats why she was bleeding. Being the totally paranoid Mom that I am I started envisioning the worst things...brian damage, internal bleeding, etc! We got checked in and thankfully there was a fish tank in the waiting room with Nemo fish in it! That helped keep us entertained for a while. There was some retarded lady there who kept walking in and out of the front doors causing a ice cold burst of wind to blow on us which was really annoying but other than that it was just a waiting game.

Finally at about 1:30 we got into a room. The doctor came and checked her vitals (which were good) and told us that the blood was coming from the nerves way up past the bridge of her nose which was why she was bleeding on both sides and there was a lot of blood. He said that there is no reason to worry about her picking her nose and causing it to bleed again as it is so far up there her little fingers could never reach it! The problem with a nosebleed in this area is that the nerves are so small and there are so many of them that it takes up to 5 days of being totally inactive to get them to clot. The only options to get it to heal faster is to have a nose specialist come in and shove packings way up in her nose and then use a tool to puff them up. He said that this process usually makes grown men cry so he didn't want to have to do it to a 2 year old unless it was a dire situation. The other option was to cauterize the veins but this again he didn't want to have to put her through unless totally necessary. The best thing to do was to keep her inactive and laying down for the next 24 hours (YEAH RIGHT) and as inactive as you can for the next 5 days (Once again YEAH RIGHT). He said that it was good that it was the middle of the night because she can go to bed and it will give it a good 8 hours to start healing.

Erika got to sit in a bed and watch whatever she wanted on tv, stay up late, got all the stickers and food her little heart desired, and even got a stuffed bunny from the nurse for being such a good girl. She was probably in heaven! Trent says its the most expensive stuffed animal she will ever own! We were talking to the nurse and Trent and I felt really stupid for now going to the ER for just a nose bleed essentially but the nurse was really nice and was telling us how its always better to be safe than sorry especially with someone her age. She has seen way to many cases of parents who think it can wait until the morning and then it is too late. That was really reassuring!

Erika has been good all day until this afternoon when she got really excited when Daddy got home and just tripped over a blanket and fell...didn't even hit her nose...and it errupted into a blood stream. She sneezes now and Trent and I brace ourselves for the blood bath. Its kind of frustrating not being able to help her but there is really nothing we can do.

So thats been our exciting past 24 hours. Trent is exhausted from getting like 2 hours of sleep last night so he crashed after work and then went to coach basketball and is getting ready to crash again. Is it the weekend yet?