e.r.

My son had just started seventh grade, only to come down with a fever and cold symptoms on the third day -- his birthday, no less. After spending the day at home, with me dosing him with cold meds all day long, he emerged from what I thought was a deep slumber at about 11:45 pm. Coincidentally, this was almost exactly twelve years to the minute of his emerging from my womb, helped along by a vacuum suction contraption since it was almost midnight and I think the doctor really wanted to go home. Twelve years ago, he did not let out a big healthy cry for a few moments, since he had copious amounts of snot clogging up his system. When he finally let out that cry, I breathed a sigh of relief and stared at his little face.

Tonight, I stared again, as my son -- again, full of snot -- started to speak. I listened hard, but could not make sense of it. “What did you say?” I asked. He repeated. “What?” I said again, to his annoyance. This went on for a while, until I realized he was saying words that did not exist in any language we knew. It went something like this:
“So, Mom, there were like, these cudjins ...”
“Cushions?”
“No, Mom, cudjins ... so they were like ...”
“Wait, Miles, I didn’t quite hear you ... did you say 'cushions' (pointing at cushions)?”
“Nooooo, Mom. Cudjins! You know, cudjins ...”

Oh my god, my son was delusional. I grabbed his shoulders and looked him in the eyes. “Miles!”
“What?!!” he said, slightly shocked at my panicked demeanor.
“What’s your name? Do you know your name?”
“Uhhh ... Miles.”
“Okay, what day is it?”
“My birthday.”
“What’s my name?”
“Uhhh, ‘Mom’ (dripping with sarcasm).”

Okay, he seemed lucid enough at this point, but I was still worried that the fever had messed up his brain. What to do, what to do? I get on the internet and start Googling. Not much help. I find the hotline on the cough syrup and call; the customer service rep from the Triaminic hotline who said this was not a known issue, and that I should go to the ER.

We get checked in quickly, but then the wait begins. We wait in an examination room, where my son is reclining comfortably in the hospital bed watching cartoons. I am sitting in a very hard plastic chair, wanting to lie down. How bad would it be if I made my son sit over here while I took a little nap? Or maybe I could just have him scoot over a little tiny bit ...

I decide it would be really bad form if I kicked my son out of the hospital bed, and I doze off in the hard plastic chair. I wake up and look at the clock. 2:13 am. I hear the sound of more urgent patients being wheeled down the hall, while I look at my son, still watching TV and looking pretty darn healthy at this point.

I go to find a nurse. “Excuse me -- can we leave now?”
“Oh, don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about you. You’re next on the list.”

Tick-tock, tick-tock. A little girl and her parents are wheeled into our room, and a doctor comes in immediately to check on her. I move my feet out of the way so the doctor doesn’t trip over me, his coat grazing my knee as he passes. I look up, hoping to make eye contact. Not a chance. I feel like a piece of furniture.

I go down the hall and find a different nurse. “Excuse me, can we leave?”
”Well, you could,” she looks me over and then proceeds with a little attitude in her voice, “but presumably you brought him in for some reason.”
“Uhh, yes, but those symptoms happened four hours ago. He seems fine now.”
“Don’t worry -- you are next on the list,” she says with a smile.

Sigh. Finally, finally, finally at about 4 am, the young, fresh-faced resident doc arrives and interrupts the cartoon-watching. She examines my son and goes over a variety of possible explanations for his delusional behavior, none of which are serious. The “real” doctor comes in about twenty minutes later, confirms what the resident had said, and then sums it up in a nutshell: “This is not uncommon with high fevers.”

Okay. So why did that not pop up on my Google search?

We stumble back into our house before 5 am. “This is the worst birthday ever!” my son moans as he crawls back into his bed. I give him a hug. I can’t disagree, but I feel strangely philosophical about the past five hours. Our trip to the ER has been an eye-opener. During my waking moments, I overheard doctors give vague and uncertain explanations to parents of a girl who was clearly in distress, with the parents reacting calmly, as if they have been here in the ER before, many times. I saw another girl come in for asthma treatments -- her weary-looking young parents also looking like they are very familiar with the ER -- and I am guessing that they either have no health insurance, or their insurance does not cover prescriptions, because my kids have asthma, too, but we have a nebulizer at home that is covered by our insurance.

As I climb back into bed, I try to turn off my analysis of the healthcare system and focus on being home again. I can hear my son in his room, already asleep: snotty, snoring and non-delusional. This gurgling, congested buzzsaw sound has never been more reassuring. All in all, definitely worth the wait.